


The Arrangement

by Maldoror_Chant



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst and Humor, M/M, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Not a romance per se, Preventer missions, Veeery long fic ahoy, background threesome, communication and emotions are for pansies as far as the main character is concerned, did we mention the violence yet?, infiltration missions, mature themes, mentions of torture, sex and violence, war-time missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2018-12-31 11:25:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 43
Words: 312,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12131427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: Wufei, struggling with his demons, agrees to a wartime fling with Heero, no affection needed or wanted. But the 'arrangement' lasts and grows as they join the preventers. It could become a source of strength for both. If they let it.





	1. The...Arrangement

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, here it is. This archived version has very minor corrections, mainly punctuation and a few redundant adjectives pruned. No changes should be noticeable, other than making it more readable. 
> 
> A humongous THANKS to Cyphomandra for sending me her copy that already had all the quotations issues removed <3 Another huge THANKS to Opalsong for podficcing this monster - I'm not sure if you need applause or clinical help, luv, I feel like gifting you some throat lozenges. And a third THANKS to all the peeps who've told me over the years how much they like this fic. You all make it worthwhile :) I hope you enjoy this slightly cleaned-up and easily downloadable version.

Punch, lunge.

Kata and meditation. Two sides of the same coin. The kind you placed in a corpse's mouth before the journey to the underworld.

Swing, bend, kick.

The meditation helped him take a step back from everything that his life had become. A never-ending pursuit of justice, strength, revenge. A living monument to the dead.

Dodge, swing, punch-punch.

The katas plunged him right into it. He _was_ justice. Strength. And above all, revenge.

Straighten, kick wide.

The kata was a distillation of the battle fury that blew all traces of sadness and doubt from his soul.

Slide fist down leg, sweep, turn, punch.

And it existed only for one thing. To harness the fury, and fight.

Straighten, fists pulled back in to sides. Breathe out. Fists down.

Never enough though.

Stop.

"Got an eyeful?" Wufei snarled.

There was no perky, embarrassed answer. He turned in surprise. The presence he'd felt behind him wasn't Maxwell, creeping up behind him to ogle him during his practice (for the third time).

Wufei had retreated to the Gundam's shed, where their metal alter-egos lay like sheeted corpses in a morgue upon their flatbed trucks. The huge space was mostly shadows. There was just one light flickering in the darkness. The laptop's screen made blue eyes glisten.

Of course. There was only one other pilot who was just as likely to be here as Duo, though he wouldn't have come to look at Wufei.

Heero Yuy was sitting next to Wing's open hatch, reading something on the laptop's screen. He didn't bother to respond or even glance down at Wufei.

"Thought it was Maxwell," Wufei said in lieu of apology, not that any were needed, and turned away. He wondered how long Heero had been there. And if he was also escaping from Maxwell. Probably.

Wufei brought his fists up to his waist, breathed, then started to move, the twenty-four step Yang form as ingrained as the katas. As he slowly reached, stepped, turned, body almost floating, his mind dwelt lightly on Heero Yuy.

He'd been slightly curious about Heero when they'd first met. Not that much though. The slow moves of the Tai Chi forms were misleading to the casual observer. Except when he was meditating, Wufei was never that tranquil. He was a battlefield of emotions; anger, humiliation at his failures, the burning desire to become better, stronger, to finally accomplish his revenge, to attain justice for the fallen. That storm tossed a few other feelings around like beaten rags, and curiosity was one of them, easily forgotten. Mainly he'd wondered if the same storm blew through Heero. The way the man laughed after shooting down half a dozen mobile suits was enough to make a typhoon shiver and creep away quietly.

He'd observed the other youth for awhile, and decided they were not the same at all. Yuy could control his emotions perfectly and was an admirable soldier, but he wasn't constantly taming and challenging and pushing himself to become any better. Heero was a weapon. He didn't have a purpose. He _was_ a purpose. Sometimes, Wufei caught himself envying the simplicity and icy calm of that state of being. But he wouldn't trade it for the storm that gave him strength as it constantly ripped him apart. This was who he was.

Wufei finished the Yang forms and started on the more vigorous Chen. Slow movements uncoiling into more rapid twists and lunges, like a snake uncoiling to strike.

He wished Heero would spar with him. He'd seen some video footage of his escape from the OZ base, as well as some other actions. Yuy was better than Barton and way above the other two, and Wufei longed to see how he measured up against him. But he was sure Yuy would not agree to a match; he wouldn't see the point. Wufei was constantly trying to find new tests to measure and improve his skills. Heero only knew missions and the most efficient way to fulfill them. He trained against the enemy. It didn't matter to him that most enemies they faced -including the hated mindless puppets Romefeller were using now- were way below him and didn't test the purity of his skills the way one-on-one bare-hand combat would.

His loss.

Wufei finished the form, then started the series of pressure point movements which always made him think of his master. The old man had sworn by the Thirty Four Points method, which, he told his pupil, would insure Wufei would never go deaf, or suffer from arthritis in his old age. The Chinese pilot still performed the moves, fingers pressing and rubbing vigorously over points of his skull and his joints, never mind the fact he was likely to be dead before his sixteenth year was finished; it wasn't something that occupied his thoughts much. He just remembered the wrinkled old man in the artificial dawn of the colony, in a simple tunic and loose pants quite removed from his usual ceremonial garments, doing the same slow moves day after day... until... enough.

Wufei fell back into first form. Straight, legs slightly apart. Breathe. Draw fists up to the side, elbows bent back. Breathe. Begin. The cleansing violence of the kata took him over once again.

A flicker of feeling tried to tell him that dark blue eyes were, in fact, watching him over the top of the computer's screen. The feeling was ripped apart by the storm. It was probably wrong anyway.

 

 

Several days passed and still no mission, just the endless running, dodging and evading of enemy troops, swarming like ants after giants. There was no opportunity for a real fight, and Wufei was beginning to feel the lack, a creeping numbness in his mind. Without real battle, the storm died, and most of his soul died with it.

Wufei sat, cross-legged, in the spare room. In the dark, bar a trickle of sunshine from the shuttered windows and the light coming in from the living room through the partially open door. All the pilots were feeling the pressure, and Maxwell was fast becoming unbearable. Some things in particular were getting...hard to ignore. Wufei snarled silently, forcing the braided fool out of his thoughts, he'd interrupted him enough! And beating him up would not provide much of a challenge. Hopefully Duo wouldn't come looking for him in a dark and apparently empty room. Wufei needed to meditate or he was going to go insane.

Emotions roiled and he separated his centre from the sticky strands, forcing himself to rise above them, confront them, dominate them and subdue them. Putting his mind through the same kind of gruelling, punishing routine he inflicted upon his body.

//Meiran in a field of flowers; flowers of fire as his colony exploded like a budding rose; rose scent wafting from Treize holding a sabre to his throat before letting him go as if casually tossing out useless broken suit parts floating in space and among them Meiran in a field of flowers of fire as his colony exploded like a budding rose scent-...//

The front door closed with a click. Wufei glanced up automatically checking for danger. It was Yuy, back from one of his endless revisions of Wing (well everyone needed a hobby).

Wufei didn't relax. Something was...off. He unfolded his legs and leaned forward to better see out the half-open door.

Heero stood at the entrance to the living room, staring straight ahead. The slight scowl was usual. The tension in his shoulders was not. Neither Trowa nor Quatre noticed though. To Wufei's practiced eye, the slight imbalance in Yuy's stance screamed trouble.

Heero's eyes flicked over Quatre who glanced up in nervous surprise at the foreign feelings brushing him. The gaze lasted all of a heartbeat, sweeping on dismissively and resting on Trowa on the couch. Trowa was motionless for a few seconds, reading a mission print-out under the blow-torch glare. Then he lifted his head, one steady green glance from behind the thick bangs, eyes calm and flat. Heero hesitated then his eyes traveled on. They caught on Duo as he walked out of the kitchen with a ration bar and the scowl that exploded onto Heero's features sent the L2 pilot ducking back into the kitchen on pure instinct. Wufei didn't blame him.

The eyes ran over the room, still searching. Wufei rose in a fluid movement and walked to the door. Cobalt blue eyes caught his movement and focused on him. He felt himself weighed and measured to the last atom. Hackles rising slightly he faced the gaze with the calm of his lingering meditation.

"Chang. A word." Heero turned without any further comment and headed out the door again. Three pairs of eyes -Duo had cautiously emerged from the kitchen- fastened on him. Wufei followed Wing's pilot calmly.

Heero was walking quickly two dozen feet ahead as if he'd had no doubt of being followed. Wufei felt a little needling urge to return to the safe-house, but ignored it. Heero would have a good reason to want to talk to him, and if he was high-handed it was because he didn't see the need to be anything otherwise. There was a war on; matters of politeness were contemptible.

A change of direction caught Wufei off guard. He'd assumed they were heading to the barn where the Gundams were still housed on their flatbed trucks. But Heero, with a glance behind them, had taken off at an angle and was walking swiftly toward the left. Wufei remembered a long low shed off to one side of the property they were hiding out in. It housed a broken tractor and a lot of dusty empty space. He followed, curious.

Heero was staring at the tractor when Wufei closed the door behind him and moved into the shed, hazy dust-speckled sunlight rippling around his movements. Then the L1 pilot turned and walked in a half circle around Wufei, keeping a few feet of space between them. Wufei could feel himself coldly assessed. Was he needed for a mission? No, this felt different.

Wufei ignored the man who was moving slowly between him and the door although of course he noted the position. He moved forward a few feet eyeing the tractor, a broken rusty relic rearing from folds of tarp like a fossilized reptile half caught in rock.

"I find myself with an issue." Yuy's voice echoed behind him in the dusty air, flat, slightly nasal. "You may be affected too. I want to suggest a mutually beneficial arrangement."

Wufei turned slowly to face the soldier.

"We are at war and cannot afford distractions." Heero's voice was abrupt, his eyes as cold as ever. "However, adrenaline, hormones and the after-effects of action take their toll on self-control. Sexual tension can interfere with proper functioning. We can help each other with that."

"You wish me to teach you how to control your urges through meditation?" Wufei asked, slightly derisively. His face was his usual mask, impassive bordering on disdainful. Behind the facade he was dealing with the shock that Heero Yuy had just admitted to having urges that broke his iron self-control.

The offer of meditation was padding against the second shock, which was what he thought Heero was actually proposing...and it wasn't anything to do with mental exercises.

"Meditation helps you with this?" Heero's voice was coldly incredulous.

"Any weakness can be overcome with sufficient focus and determination," Wufei snapped, looking down his nose.

"Is that why your temper around Maxwell has gotten steadily worse over the past few days?" Now the nasal voice was downright mocking.

Wufei's eyes glittered with anger. "Maxwell annoys me!"

"Yes, but you can ignore that. The fact that he's flirting with you is what seems to be getting to you."

Wufei's fists clenched in anger, though he couldn't actually deny it. "Well, there's your answer then, Yuy. He's been flirting with you too, maybe you should-"

"Don't insult me." A cold sneer. "I need physical release, not an emotional train-wreck. Maxwell -and Winner- do not have the detachment necessary to see this as a need to relieve, a purely physical problem. They lack, as you call it, focus."

"Try Barton."

Blue eyes weighed him again carefully. Wufei felt himself grow hostile under that gaze as it judged him and found his answer wanting. "I can, if I need to, though I'd rather not. Barton is an unknown quantity to me. I don't _think_ he has the emotions to get in the way. But I'm not sure he has the need either."

"And I do?"

A smirk was his only answer.

Wufei turned and walked slowly towards the tractor, getting his temper back under control. He heard footsteps shadow his a few feet away.

"So is your hand injured?" Wufei asked, once more impassive as he faced Heero again.

"Hand? Oh. I find that sharing the need is more satisfying."

"Really."

"One of the rebel soldiers who worked with J partnered me previously but now I need another arrangement."

Wufei’s eyes narrowed. Arrangement. Partnered. What...quaint terms. 

Yuy was ten feet away, between Wufei and the exit.

Partnered? "I guess we can discuss-" Wufei's eyes flicked to the door behind Heero in surprise and annoyance. Heero glanced behind him then turned back with a question in the blue eyes that was answered by the gun pointing straight between them. Heero glared at it.

"A simple 'no' would have sufficed." Anger and adrenaline radiated from the deadly killer.

Wufei ignored the death-threat scowl. "That's what I wanted to be sure of."

" ...If I was a rapist, Chang, I would be making my own arrangements." The voice was coldly contemptuous. "In that case you would not be my first choice of victim."

But he had been his first choice for the...arrangement. Wufei was now the one weighing, measuring. Trying to figure out if he was supposed to be slightly flattered or hugely offended. Neither felt right in the face of Heero's attitude; a straightforward and efficient approach to a calmly stated problem. That was what was keeping Wufei's temper in check. Because part of him -in fact the biggest part of him since his clan was destroyed, erasing his past, his self, in a blaze of fire - thought like that too. Efficiency. You saw a problem and you solved it and then you went on to kill the enemy in bigger and better ways. But still... there was one point on which they seemed to be different.

"Not your choice of victim? I think you enjoy challenges," Wufei finally said.

"I do. But I keep things separate." Yes, neatly compartmentalized, Wufei thought. "And I am no rapist," Heero repeated, obviously waiting for Wufei to put the gun away so he could leave. Partnered...

"Neither am I. But then again I seem to have better control over myself than you do in this matter at least." Blue eyes blazed in cold fury and Wufei's finger instinctively put pressure on the trigger. Then he loosened it again, and lifted the gun. "I have other needs though. I've seen some of your hand-to-hand fighting skills, I'm curious to measure myself against them."

Without the gun in his face Heero was actually listening to him, but he looked puzzled. The man can only think in straight lines, Wufei thought. He glanced down at the gun in his hand, saw his thumb brush on the safety as if it belonged to a stranger. He couldn't quite believe he was contemplating...as a small piece of him cringed, the answer came out from the dead part of his soul, the one that didn't care about anything but battle anymore.

"Pin me, and you have your...arrangement." He tossed the gun aside. It hit the beaten dirt ground with a thud, spinning lazily.

Heero stared at him for a whole ten seconds. Enough time for the part of Wufei's mind that could still worry about details to catch up with him.

"But no-..." Wufei stared at his own raised finger, tension ringing through him. No what? What exactly did Yuy have in mind? Wufei's knowledge about these matters was nil. He didn't even know what it was that he didn't-

Heero turned his back on Wufei, who was surprised at the strength of both his relief and disappointment. But Heero didn't leave. He slowly reached behind him and drew his own gun out of its back holster by the top of the barrel and flicked on the safety blind, before turning and tossing the weapon to join Wufei's, whose tension returned with a vengeance.

"No penetration. Agreed." Heero lifted an arm and rolled his shoulder, eyes steady and thoughtful as if he hadn't just said that.

The words were making this all too real to Wufei as he dropped into a defensive stance. The dead part of his soul shivered in anticipation of a real challenge; the small part that was still the prim, reserved scholar was swearing to do all that was possible to not get pinned down and-

Heero didn't adopt a stance or anything, he just leapt forward. No formal style, Wufei had time to think. Then he was parrying blows that were still light and probing, but probably wouldn't be so for long.

The warrior took over, and Wufei welcomed him. The battle-hardened fighter couldn't feel pain, loneliness, despair, humiliation, doubt. The emotions were blown away and he became a thing of controlled dark fury, the heart of the storm.

The emotions coursing through him now were harsh and crude. Dark joy at seeing the cold eyes widen in surprise as he spun and twisted with ease inside Heero's guard. It was like punching gundanium; he felt he'd bruised his fist more than Heero's ribs. He'd held back a bit, the blow wasn't crippling. Heero wasn't trying to injure him, and he, in turn, wouldn't do anything to remove a gundam pilot from the war effort even temporarily. It would soon be obvious to Heero he couldn't get through his guard.

Wufei blocked a blow that numbed his arm for a few seconds and retaliated instinctively, following the moves that had been imprinted into his very cells by constant practice. Fist pistoning out -Heero dodged- half a step forward to keep him off-balance, strike again- But he could feel it, the sheer potential in the body he was targeting as Heero maneuvered to get into position, analyzing Wufei's moves.

Wufei smiled in fierce elation. At last an opponent to his measure. What Yuy wanted from him almost seemed a fair deal in exchange for finally fighting someone who could challenge his best, who wasn't an abyss of weakness pulling him down. Wufei's smile widened as Heero's quick jab got through his guard, striking his side before he could entirely twist out of the way. The pain was a small flash of light in the fury of the storm, easily ignored.

He couldn't pin down Yuy's style, it was so different from sparring with a real martial artist. Wufei suddenly bent at the knees, blocked Yuy's automatic kick, shoved the leg and shot up in his opponent's slight stagger, left fist up for a punch to the jaw that would put Yuy out for the count. Heero moved faster than was almost imaginable and the fist merely knocked him in the mouth in passing. Wufei was already following through with his right fist. Heero intercepted. The hard blow impacted on a steely arm which barely moved a fraction.

Heero dropped back a few steps, running a casual thumb across his lip to flick away blood seeping from a small split. His eyes were measuring Wufei more carefully now. The perfect soldier smiled, a small cold movement of the lips that must have stung and didn't reach his eyes.

Thirty seconds later, Wufei was flat on his back. Two steel hands were wrapped around his wrists, a strong body was pinning his legs and sides, and he was staring up dazedly at two cobalt irises that showed as much emotion as the LED in a computer. Wufei tried to twist against the hold, but he could barely move. He glared up at the victor. Who was waiting. Giving him, he realized, the option to change his mind if he wanted to.

"I'm as good as my word," Wufei snapped, offended. "You can-"

Hard lips crushed his own, not so much a kiss as another kind of hold. Wufei tasted blood, he couldn't tell whose. Heero's body twisted against his own, his knee forcing Wufei's legs slightly apart, lowering and- Wufei tensed as he felt Heero bend and grind down against him, groin to groin, a hard nearly bruising movement.

Wufei lay, unmoving, mind replaying those last thirty seconds, trying to figure out how Heero had beaten his guard so quickly. Trying to distract himself. Not so much from what Heero was doing - it was the winner's prerogative, and hardly the worse he could have chosen to do with it- as from his own body's mechanical reaction to the friction. He didn't need that. This was humiliating enough.

A writhing part of Wufei he wasn't fully in touch with insisted that this was only fair. He'd lost. He'd not been strong enough. A man who lost deserved death or humiliation; not to be let go as if he was nothing.

The lips left his own. Wufei took a trembling gasp of air, his body still shaking from the brutal take-down that had pinned him to the chaff-ridden dirt floor. The rhythm of thrusts increased, Heero was panting against his shoulder. The hold on his wrists became painful, then bruising, then agonizingly crushing. Wufei snarled silently but said nothing. Winner's privilege, he thought, grinding it into his mind to ignore the grinding of flesh against his own, and his own hardness in response.

The steel body pinning his stiffened, then, well, it wasn't a relaxation, more a slight uncoiling of tension. Wufei shifted. Fine, now they could just forget the whole-

The lips crushed his again, and Wufei gave a muffled cry of surprise. What the-

Heero released Wufei's bruised left wrist -his hand, numbed by the pressure, could only twitch for a few seconds- and dropped between them, jerking Wufei's black cloth belt loose and slipping down to- Wufei gave another muffled shout, and his weakened left arm shoved against a hard shoulder, which didn't move an inch. His right hand was still pinned down with bone-cracking force and the body atop of his stopped him from twisting away. Wufei's initial fear -to have that hard hold on a much more delicate part of himself than his wrist - gave way to anger and affront as he realized that the hand was gentler than he dreaded, but was purposefully caressing him, half-hardened as he was, with sure, efficient movements.

He didn't- he didn't require this! His left fist tensed, but there wasn't much he could do with just one hand. Well, no, there was a lot he could do, but not while Heero had his own left hand where it was. This was no time to startle the perfect soldier with a sucker punch or a nerve pinch. Wufei cursed internally, anger burning through him, matching the humiliation as his body responded. He tried to control it, deny it, ignore it, not even notice exactly what Heero was doing to him, and how it felt, and all this wasn't helped by the fact that, even left-handed, Yuy...appeared to be...

...very...

...talented...

...

Wufei slowly returned to the low shed, dust falling eternally in the crude light, the smell of dirt, oil and old wheat muffling the more organic scents of sex and sweat. His body was thrumming, and he was embarrassingly wet and sticky and thoroughly confused about how he felt about any of this. Heero released his wrist and rose in a fluid, unconsciously graceful movement, neither looking at Wufei significantly nor particularly avoiding his glance. It was as if nothing special had happened. Slight gratitude for that went into the emotional mix churning in Wufei's guts. He managed to sit up, rubbing his arm across numbed and bruised lips, head spinning. He heard Heero pick up his gun then rummage near the tractor behind them.

"Here."

Wufei turned and barely caught the rag before it hit him in the face. He glared at Heero who was wiping his hands against the spandex, oblivious. The long green tank top, now hanging loose from the shorts, dropped low enough to hide any traces of their...activities. Wufei grudgingly cleaned himself up and straightened his clothes, wishing the mental repercussions could be sorted as easily. A strong hand appeared before him. He glared up, ignoring it. Hard eyes measured him again.

"Do we have an arrangement?"

Wufei stared in anger and disbelief, fighting to keep his face impassive as he tried to figure out what to say. Since he wasn't sure himself.

Heero's eyes dropped to the dirty oil-stained rag Wufei was holding. "Next time I'll bring something cleaner," he added.

"Next time I won't go down so easily, Yuy!" Wufei snarled, surging to his feet, ignoring the proffered hand. It was withdrawn without embarrassment. The other one was extended. Wufei stared for three second at his gun held out to him by the barrel, then he took it without a word and holstered it. A cold small smile brushed Heero's lips as he turned away and walked to the door. Wufei, who couldn't quite believe what he'd said and implied, followed.

They walked back side by side in silence. Heero was quiet because he was, well, Heero. And Wufei was busy sorting through the words that would explain some things to Yuy, hopefully right after they'd explained things to Wufei.

He didn't know what he felt about the...arrangement he'd just agreed to. Well, furious and embarrassed, of course. But also oddly pleased that Heero had chosen him, had realized he had the focus and dedication to not let something like this interfere with his efficiency. And it didn't; because all the emotions he felt were just flapping around uselessly in the cold wind roaring in his soul, temporarily sated with the aftertaste of a real battle. No, the deal was fair...except for...

Wufei had been a scholar once, before the storm. He was widely read, and knew quite a bit about traditions in many Asian countries. He knew what he'd agreed to; shudo, the Japanese called it. The sexual relations between samurai who, shunning the weakness of women and the ties they implied, preferred the company of men. This he understood, and as such he wasn't repulsed, or dishonored. On the contrary. The relations were normally between an older, more experienced warrior and a younger one. As such, it probably hadn't surprised Heero that Wufei had suggested a fight first, just to establish who was who in their relations, since they were the same age. But the fact that Heero had also...why creep around the facts. The fact that Heero had jerked him off afterwards indicated that the Japanese youth considered him something of an equal, or at least, a fellow warrior with the same urges he had. It was a neat, efficient solution to a problem, typical of the perfect soldier. Heero hadn't meant to insult him, either with the proposal or the... the last part.

As such, Wufei didn't know how to find the words to tell him he didn't want anything to do with that bit. In his view, his share of the... arrangement would be the chance to measure himself against someone who could beat him fair and square. He already knew how he'd respond to some of the moves Heero had shown him today. Next time, he wouldn't go down so easily.

But when he did go down - and he was good enough a fighter to realize that it would take more than one round for him to figure out Heero's informal fighting style- he didn't want Heero pawing him afterwards, he didn't need that release.

Not that it wasn't- No, he didn't need it.

He used meditation to calm those urges. No, actually, he used the memory of Meiran - a hundred thin needles rammed themselves into his heart and soul, in a customary act of self-punishment- to conquer the urges, then meditation to recover his calm and his center, to allow himself to accept, once more, that he'd failed his wife and that she was dead, just as he'd failed his clan and they were dead, and that revenge for both was still lacking due to his failure. The controlled fury washed him clean of all sexual urges.

But...

The thought crept into his mind that if he let Heero continue to uphold his end of their...arrangement, then he could concentrate on taming some other demon during his sessions of meditation. It was embarrassing -not the need for sexual relief, he felt no shame about that, he was just ashamed he couldn't control it better. But if he could spend time improving his mental stability, while at the same time testing his fighting abilities against Heero, then he would surely be only the stronger and better for it.

When they reached the house, he'd said nothing to Heero, and he knew he wouldn't now. The deal was done.

"Ah there they-sweet mother of god!" Duo gaped at the bruises evident on Wufei's arms and Heero's split lip. "Wh-what, did you guys fight?!"

"Sparring," Wufei and Heero both answered at the same time. And turned as one towards Quatre. The blonde dropped his book and recoiled in the armchair under the double-barreled gaze daring him to comment or even _feel_ anything strange with his empathy. Quatre's lips moved silently in protest at the intensity of the stares and the underlying warning, shrinking helplessly into himself, until two long arms were placed protectively on the armrests on either side of him.

Wufei and Heero glanced up at Trowa, leaning over Quatre and the back of the armchair, and making a rampart of calm green eyes against black and blue. Heero measured him up with slight surprise and turned away. Wufei noted his small sneer of disdain, and glanced back at the two. No, he didn't think Heero had it right, he was thinking in straight lines again. Those two weren't lovers, at least not in the physical sense. It was more something like inter-dependency, maybe some friendship. Wufei didn't care. It wouldn't affect Trowa's performance. And though Wufei judged that Quatre had way too many weaknesses for a true warrior, his positive points made him a good tactical leader, who, in the midst of battle, wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice any one of them including Trowa if he had to.

Wufei turned his back on the three in the living room and walked towards the small room he shared with no-one. He heard the shower running down the hall and hoped Heero wouldn't use up all of their meager supply of hot water. He went to grab some clean clothes -dirt and wheat-chaff clung to his white pants and he was still sticky- and waited his turn, trying not to think. He was getting very good at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had Wufei practice katas here because it is a canon of fanfics, but katas are Japanese. Chinese refer to the pattern of formal exercises that allow the practice of martial arts as 'forms' (loose translation into English, natch, I don't know the Chinese and couldn't find it). I kept kata so people would know what I meant. Lord help me, this ain't by far the only mistake or inconsistency I can be accused of.
> 
> As there is now very few corrections to make (thanks again, Cyphomandra!) I should be able to put this up at a rate of a chapter or two a day.


	2. The War Days

"No, not for at least twenty four hours," Wufei said firmly. "I'm not putting Nataku at risk with an untried piece of equipment, and it will take me at least that long to run the necessary tests."

Heero scowled. "Can you yank it out?"

"The new circuit integrator? It's not yet installed. I can put the present configuration back if I have to. Am I needed?"

Heero glanced down at the mission specs on his laptop. "I will analyze the parameters again and see if I can work with only two Gundams. If not, yes, I will require your presence."

"Just give me an hour's warning." Wufei sighed. It had taken him that long just to get the hatch open and the wiring ready to set the new integrator in place. But opposing OZ had priority over upgrading his beloved Nataku. In an hour his machine could be back to normal, and ready to do what it did best; battle.

"Confirmed." Heero walked along the recumbent Nataku to the edge of its shoulder and sat down with his laptop, scanning through mission specs. He was leaning against the headpiece, legs dangling and crossed. Wufei shook his head ever so slightly; for an instant he'd seen a sixteen year old boy sitting there, while at the same time, the firm hands spoke of a competent killer and the soul of a machine shone in those eyes.

Wufei's own eyes and attention dropped back to the panel he was unscrewing. Nataku always ranked higher in his mind than the puzzle that was Heero Yuy.

"Well, you guys seem to be getting along today."

Wufei almost put the screwdriver through his hand as the good-humored voice chirped unexpectedly near his shoulder. He heard Yuy start from his perch a dozen feet away.

"Maxwell! Don't sneak up on me!" he snarled at the smug face of the pest (who had probably just finished putting in his own new integrator in record time and come to gloat at the struggling scholar who was better with theory than mechanics, it had to be admitted).

"Ooops, sorry, Wuffers! Didn't mean to scare you! Is your little heart going pitter-patter?"

Duo made a move to put a palm on Wufei's chest and found the screwdriver hovering in front of his right eye.

"O-kay, still not in the best of moods, are we?" He grinned. Wufei had yet to find a threat, physical or verbal, that could cow the irrepressible L2 pilot. Even Heero's death-glares didn't faze him that much, and that was saying a lot.

Duo perched himself on the edge of the hatch opposite Wufei, despite a fierce look. The L5 pilot decided to ignore him and started taking out the next relay board.

"So, how are you getting along with Heero, Wufee?" Duo whispered, leaning over with a quick glance at Yuy over his shoulder. The perfect soldier was ignoring him with the ease of long practice.

Wufei didn't answer, though his movements with the screwdriver slowed slightly.

"You both seem barely able to be polite to each other most of the time, and occasionally you both disappear and come back covered in bruises... tell you the truth, me and the guys are starting to worry."

Wufei didn't answer as he unfastened the board and set it carefully aside. He wasn't sure what Duo meant. The...arrangement between himself and Heero had been called upon twice since the first time in the shed, over a month ago. And though Wufei had lost both times - after considerably more resistance - he'd hardly been 'covered in bruises'. As for their relations outside of their 'sparring', they were, much to Wufei's relief, the same as before. Cold, precise and to the point, two warriors acting as reluctant allies in the fight against Oz. Nothing more, nothing less. It satisfied him. And the sparring, the violent unleashing of the storm in his heart, satisfied him even more. The...conclusion to the arrangement was, well, part of the deal. In a way, a very small way, he even felt glad to be able to help the perfect soldier with something that might otherwise affect his performance.

"You know, Wufee..." Duo scooted along the edge of the hatch, closer to the his fellow pilot. "If this is just a means of dealing with stress..."

"Stress?" Wufei asked a bit sharply. Duo's eyes were gleaming in the reflected work light shining off Nataku's interior.

"Yeah, stress. Hm, the reason we're not all _too_ worried is because, well, you've not killed each other yet, and also, you've both been in a much better mood. Practically the best you've been since we started shacking up together."

"You exaggerate," Wufei growled. But it was partially true. Heero's stress levels had been growing alarmingly before the arrangement had been made, and they were now back down to merely 'homicidal terrorist' intensity. Wufei...well he had to admit that he got along a lot better with the others these days, particularly Maxwell. Well, most times.

Right now however, he really didn't feel like dealing with him.

Unlike Heero, Wufei had a sense of humor. He just rarely let it rule his tongue, because it was as cold and cruel as the storm that drove him, and anyway he didn't like trivialities. Sometimes though, it would have its way.

"If you think _you_ need some relief from stress, Maxwell, I'm sure Heero would oblige you with a match. He'd probably like that." Wufei smiled minutely at the scowl that was directed at him over Duo's shoulder. He would pay for that barb later, especially if Maxwell actually went for it. But theirs was not an affectionate relationship, or even an amicable alliance. It was an arrangement born of necessity, and he didn't feel like pulling his punches to respect that. Heero certainly didn't.

Duo glanced over his shoulder and grimaced. "Ah, maybe I'll pass. You're the only one crazy enough to go one-on-one with the perfect soldier, buddy. Me, I bruise easily. There's something else we could consider..."

Duo leaned back, tossing his braid off his shoulder sensuously, and extended his long legs across Wufei's field of vision, one of them nudging his elbow slightly. Wufei swore wearily and silently in Mandarin. He wanted to get this done, Heero might still need him for the mission, and Maxwell was in heat again. Wonderful.

“As I said, Wuffers, if this is just a way of dealing with stress, there might be another solution, one that doesn't imply bruises?"

Wufei felt more than heard Heero get down from his perch on Nataku's shoulders and drop to the arm that was lying along the giant's side as it lay on the ground. The Japanese pilot was scowling. He didn't approve of distractions, of emotional involvement, of useless flirting, which meant he pretty much did not approve of Duo Maxwell. Wufei noticed cobalt eyes gleam as they briefly caught his, and read the intent in the set of Heero's shoulders before he dropped to Nataku's arm and moved along it until he was behind and below Duo. Wufei tossed the screwdriver to his other hand, grabbed Duo's legs and pitched the youth backwards out of the hatch and headfirst down to the ground. Duo's yell of alarm and surprise was interrupted as Heero caught him by the collar in his fall to the concrete a few feet below Nataku's arm.

Wufei lifted his head and leaned out of the hatch to watch. Heero's eyes were gleaming like Wing's thermal sword as he brought Duo's face close to his own, hands twisted in his collar.

"Leave. Now."

Duo's eyes were wide and his face a bit white, but he managed to scowl. Wufei felt reluctantly impressed.

"You guys are mean. Okay, keep your own sour company, if that's the way you like it. You can beat each other to a fucking pulp for all I care." Duo tore himself from Heero's grasp and stomped towards the exit.

Heero scowled at his back then raised his eyes towards Wufei.

"We will require Shenlong for the mission."

"Very well."

Wufei made to turn back towards the hatch to replace the circuits.

"When will you be done with that?"

Wufei glanced back down. "An hour, at least."

"There are four hours before the mission. Will you have time for...some sparring?"

Wufei's eyebrows arched. Then he shook his head. "I will want to run some tests to make sure I haven't-"

"Of course, understood." Heero nodded firmly. He didn't offer to help, to allow Wufei to finish quicker. They understood each other on that point as well; no one touched Nataku's circuits but the pilot who was the lesser part of its soul. Any kind of physical relief was inconsequential next to that.

"Will we encounter mobile dolls on the mission?" Wufei found himself asking, momentarily distracted even from Nataku as something roiled in his mind.

"We will encounter heavy resistance, which is why I require both Heavyarms and Shenlong. Mobile dolls are a very high probability."

Incipient anger ran down Wufei's skin like the crackle of static electricity before the rising storm. Dolls. And foolish weak cowardly men controlling them, trying to overwhelm them with numbers. For all his promises of a rematch, Treize remained conspicuous by his absence. The emotions brewing in his mind stained Wufei's eyes a deeper shade of black, his fist clenched on the screwdriver.

"Tomorrow," he heard himself say. "After we get back, and recuperate." Which for Wufei meant taking care of Nataku's injuries. "Tomorrow," he repeated.

"Tomorrow then." Heero nodded slowly, his eyes lingering, and not in a friendly way. He was probably thinking of the way Wufei had tried to scrape Duo off on him. There was a promise of violence and humiliation in those eyes. Wufei's heart tightened with anticipation; the fight wouldn't be nearly so fulfilling if there wasn't a risk of either at the end. It was what made it a battle and not a game. As such he would always accept the consequences of losing. As much as he searched for the means to avoid it, and return that violence -and the humiliation of defeat- to his opponent.

 

 

Punch, lunge.

The maelstrom was licking the inside of his skin, purging him entirely. So much more than the katas...

Swing, bend, kick.

Blocked again, but this time a flicker of discomfort in deep blue eyes.

Dodge, swing, punch-punch.

He was one focus, one reason, one aim... to find the key to those tight, punishing movements before they beat him again.

Straighten, kick-

There it was!

Slide fist down leg, sweep, turn, _kick_.

Heero fell back a step, then another under the sudden blows that seemed to pierce his guard to tatters, leaving him bruised and entirely on the defensive. Wufei felt himself ignite. His movements were hurricane winds buffeting his enemy, driving him back. He could feel life screaming through his veins as if his blows were dragging it out of Heero. Who was helpless. Wufei had the key. This time there would be no explosion of vicious, unbeatable blows that would pin Wufei to the floor and leave him helpless-...

Wait.

Wufei forced himself to fall back a step, but still his legs twitched, his body unwilling to obey like a hound being called off its prey after tasting blood. Wufei snarled. He might not have the machine-like control of Heero Yuy, but neither was he some bloodthirsty cur who was excited by weakness. He forced his body to obey him.

Straighten, fists pulled back in to sides. Breathe out. Fists down. Stop.

Blue eyes stared at him, measuring him up, placing the bar a little higher than before, yet again. Body poised for defense.

Partnered...

Wufei dropped his stance and took a step back, waiting to see if that was true in more than just the sense that Heero had previously used it.

Heero felt the change in pose, and mirrored his movement, taking a step back, rubbing his arm. He glared at Nataku's pilot, his face a blank but his body uncoiling. Ready to listen.

Heero wasn't the enemy, they were allies. Partners, maybe. Wufei looked straight into the cold eyes. "You fight like you're in your Gundam."

Blue eyes widened. As he thought, Heero hadn't realized it. He'd probably had some formal training in the past, but it had been subsumed by the incessant practice meant to weld him to Wing. It had affected his fighting style. This made for a tight, instinctive ability to control his mecha, but...

"You have a weakness towards kicks, particularly high ones." Wufei bent at the waist and stretched the back of his straightened legs, and surreptitiously rubbed his knee slightly. 'Weakness' wasn't quite the right word. He felt like he'd tried to kick a Taurus across the shed they were sparring in. But he'd had Heero at a definite disadvantage.

"Hn." Heero looked thoughtful, eyes turned inward. It wasn't much of a fault; he was needed as a Gundam pilot, not an assassin anymore. But Wufei knew instinctively that Heero Yuy would not be content with leaving it at that. No way would the perfect soldier accept a flaw. Now what would he do about it.

Blue eyes measured Wufei thoughtfully. Black eyes gazed back, waiting. Watching the internal struggle.

"You will show me," Heero said, voice hard and devoid of feeling. It sounded like an order, but it was a request.

Wufei nodded curtly and took up a stance, mind playing over new parameters, recalling his training sessions with his master. How to pick apart the weakness while leaving Heero's unique style intact? And above all, not perturb any of the instincts he needed to fight in Wing? Wufei felt a small cold smile pass over his face, this was also an interesting challenge. And once Heero was better-

(Once Heero was better, Wufei would once more not have a chance in hell of fighting him off the next time the...arrangement was requested)

\- then their sparring sessions would become all the more interesting and challenging for Wufei.

Wufei saw the hard eyes follow every step of his reasoning through the slight shift in his stance, and a humorless smile acknowledged the conclusion. The arrangement momentarily put on hold, the two warriors faced off, movements slowing as the cleansing fight became a more mundane training session. Wufei hoped Heero was a quick learner. Now that he'd had a taste of real battle, the katas would be a pale substitute indeed.


	3. Needs Must

The door crashed open. Wufei's hand was on his gun, weapon half drawn, before the echoes could start to ripple out toward the dark corners of the huge repair bay.

"Wufei! Where are you?!"

Wufei turned back to his work. If Maxwell was stupid enough not to know where to look for him when he'd been in the exact same spot for the last five days... He tightened the gasket carefully.

"Wufers!" The Chinese pilot's jaw tightened as much as the gasket, but he was too busy to pick a fight. Maxwell's voice rang out from somewhere near Nataku's left foot, below Wufei as he crouched on the repair platform at chest height to the standing giant. "Get your ass down here!"

Wufei picked up his laptop and checked the connections to the reader's output device.

"Come on, man! We just got a message, Wing and Heavyarms are flying in from Thailand. They've both been damaged. Badly! They should be here any minute!"

Wufei glanced at the clatter of normally silent boots on decking, and caught sight of Maxwell's back as he vanished through the door like a puff of braided smoke.

Wufei ran the program on the laptop. The hydraulics unit started to hum and grind under slowly increasing pressure. If he finished this, then there would only be the damaged elements in the right leg to deal with and then-

A second crash at the door made him look down. Maxwell again.

"Wufei, what are you doing!? Come on!"

"Where?" Wufei increased the hydraulics output via the latpop and checked the data. Satisfactory.

"To the landing pad! They'll be here any minute! Wing's barely flying!"

"I should be finished here within the hour," Wufei informed him, shutting down the program. Now for that right leg.

"Wh-what?!"

Wufei glanced down again in annoyance. "I need to finish here if Wing and Heavyarms are to be maneuvered into the repair bay, Maxwell, so I suggest you stop bothering me."

"But-but Trowa 'n Heero could be hurt, man!"

"I'm a terrorist, 02, not a doctor. I suggest you send them to the medical bay if-" The crash of the door closing again indicated he had the opportunity to finish his repairs undisturbed.

Wufei maneuvered the mobile platform carefully, until he was level with the damaged right leg. He'd already stripped and cleaned out the broken parts, now he just needed to fit in the replacements and he'd be good to go. Less than an hour...

Wufei had been on Howard's ship for just over five days, with Maxwell. Nataku had been injured in a confrontation with a new type of mobile doll, and Duo had persuaded him to use the Sweepers as a repair base. You can't find Gundam parts in the local body shop so it wasn't as if Wufei had had much of a choice but to accept. He'd gritted his teeth and bowed down to the needs of Nataku. The necessity had been caused by his own weakness, his own failure faced with the new MS OZ had created. It was only right that his pride and honor be compromised by accepting Howard's charity.

At least the replacement parts and equipment were top notch, more than worth the price Howard had reluctantly agreed to let Wufei pay for them. He'd even managed to get his hands on a new set of weaponry circuits, he'd install them tomorrow after he'd finished the repairs and ran the appropriate tests. Then he'd be able to leave, with considerable relief. He didn't like the ship. Too many people, laughing, joking, kidding around... Maxwell to the nth degree.

Fortunately, these people had had previous experience with Heero, so they didn't even try to press the issue once he'd refused their help in his repairs. Howard hadn't even seemed too surprised when Wufei had turned down his offer to share a dorm with Duo and two other Sweepers. Wufei slept in Nataku, like he frequently did, it meant the only time he had to leave the repair bay was for the occasional shower and meal times. Nights were spent in silence and meditation, removed from the bursts of distant laughter from the upper deck. Nataku's cockpit was small but there was room in front of the command chair to curl up in a sleeping bag. The eighteen hour days he put in on the repairs, penance willingly accepted, allowed him to go to sleep quickly, eyes closing on the familiar view of the cabin dimly lit by the glow of monitors. From the curled up position on the floor he could see the few personal touches he allowed in his Gundam, carefully tied down and protected from impact. Above the secondary com console was the honorary stone tablet he'd engraved with the names of his ancestors, an inadequate replacement for the one that had been destroyed along with its shrine and any trace of his past, of the long road of the generations behind him. Underneath the chair was stored the small, carved wooden box with lacquered cover that contained a few memories of his parents, his master and Meiran. In the small compartment where he kept his duffel bag were stacked some books on philosophy, literature and religion that he'd taken with him when he'd left school to get married, intending to pursue his studies despite all annoying distractions. The books were the only things that ever left the Gundam, even when he was sleeping in a safe-house. The rest was always kept safe in Nataku's hold.

Wufei finished the repairs, leaving the panel unbolted. He could finish up after he moved Nataku to the upper hangar and allowed the other two pilots to take his place in the repair bay. If he pushed himself he could finish all the tests in the next few hours. Then tomorrow he could overhaul the circuits, and the day after that he could leave, the sooner the better.

 

 

Twelve exhausting hours later, tests finished, he headed towards the showers, and ran into Heero coming out of the kitchen with the usual tray of military rations, heading back to the repair bay. A cursory glance showed the L1 pilot to be no more than bruised. He had a patch of soot on his nose and traces of oil on his hands; he'd been dealing with Wing, who must have taken the brunt of it. Wufei nodded minutely in passing, and received a flicker of a glance acknowledging his existence in return.

That night, Wufei slept soundly for the first time in ages. If the ship was attacked his mecha could be easily evacuated in its present condition.

 

 

Wufei pushed the stuff awkwardly with his fork, mind running over the checklist that had run his life for the last week. All done. A few more non-essential tests that he could run while looking over the parameters of the next set of missions, and he could leave. The breaded brown shape beneath his fork slithered into a blob of congealed gravy. Wufei found himself wishing for a simple meal of rice and vegetables. The Sweepers believed it wasn't nutritious if it wasn't deep-fried.

He always timed his meals so that he arrived just as the last of the men were leaving the small mess hall. The cook probably hated his guts by now... he glanced up automatically at the man in the tiny kitchen area. He was ignoring Wufei, bored eyes glazing over a clipboard as he idly scratched his armpit.

The L5 pilot picked up his plate grimly. He was in Howard's debt, and also his guest, but damn it there were limits to just how polite and honorable he could be in these circumstances. He had a few ration bars left on Nataku, that would tide him over until he could leave tomorrow. He scraped the untouched food from his plate and dropped it in the bucket of dirty dishes and cutlery near the kitchen. He straightened fluidly, hand on his weapon as he suddenly felt someone watching him (besides the cook who was relieved his taciturn and unappreciative last guest was finally leaving him to finish cleaning up before going to bed).

Heero was leaning against the doorframe of the mess hall, watching him. Cobalt blue eyes flickered towards the cook, who was picking up the bucket of dishes with a grunt, then Heero turned and stepped back from the door. Wufei complied with the silent request and followed the L1 pilot a little ways down the corridor.

Heero turned and gave him the weighing look he was becoming familiar with and Wufei realized this wasn't going to be a request for his help with Wing (hah!) or for more of the training lessons that had been interrupted when their missions had sent them off in different directions a month ago.

"Do you wish to resume our previous arrangement?" Cold and abrupt, but there was a space around it, a nudge in the tone that gave Wufei plenty of room to refuse if he wanted to.

Wufei leaned a shoulder against the metal wall. Just as he was wondering if he _did_ want to- the other part of him, the storm-wracked corpse, provided the answer. "Why, do you think you have a chance of taking me down this time?" A slight arrogant smirk lifted the corner of his lips.

Heero snorted and smiled coldly, answering the question with a flex of his hands balling into fists. He turned and walked away. Wufei, blood suddenly humming in his ears, felt a weight lifting from his shoulders as he followed.

 

 

A horrified Mandarin swearword exploded from Wufei's lips; he violently wrenched his fist out of its path an instant before he severely injured his sparring partner. Heero's hand was up but it was lifted in a 'stop' gesture, not a defensive block as Wufei had expected; cobalt blue eyes were distant, pupils widening as he concentrated his senses on something other than their match.

"K'so!" Yuy broke out of the defenseless pose and leapt towards the worktable where they'd put their guns. Tension slammed through Wufei, eyes searching for danger as his ears picked up the small scramble from the back of the room. He twisted and caught the tail end of a braid disappearing out the back door.

"He's gone." Wufei said through lips rigid with anger as Heero spun around, gun ready. He noted with curiosity - he still kept some scholarly instincts - the interesting Japanese vernacular that ensued. There were a few terms there he'd never even heard of, he'd have to do some research later on. One should always seek to increase one's knowledge.

Heero slammed the gun down with a clang that brushed the air around Wing and Heavyarms, a little ways off. Nataku and Maxwell's machine were on another level, Trowa was still in the infirmary, the Sweepers were carousing on the upper deck... they should have remained uninterrupted. But Maxwell had become notoriously curious about their sparring in the last safe-house they'd occupied together.

Heero glanced at Wufei, a question. The Chinese man shrugged minimally, then winced. He growled as he rolled his right shoulder in a tight arc; he'd wrenched the muscles pulling out of the blow so suddenly. His grueling repair work had left him stiff and out of practice.

"I'm going to have to concede this one," he muttered. He had to leave with Nataku the next day, he couldn't afford to stress his body too much.

Heero was silent for a second then shrugged and bowed slightly. "Thank you for the match." As Wufei looked at him in surprise, Heero picked up his gun again and started towards the door, holstering it.

"Wait." Wufei felt hot embarrassment shoot through him as Heero glanced at him. He could just let Yuy leave, but...that wouldn't be very fair. "I conceded. You won."

Heero was silent again, then said, in his cold, precise voice, "You injured yourself because I stopped-"

"Because of Maxwell," Wufei interrupted. "And I should have better control over my movements. I shouldn't injure myself because of something unexpected."

Heero shrugged and took another two steps towards the door.

"You would have won anyway," Wufei snapped, briskly overcoming his reluctance. "You've improved considerably."

Heero glanced back again, eyes carefully neutral but surprise in the line of his shoulders, the tilt of his head. But it was the truth. Wufei could hardly believe that half a dozen training sessions had been enough for Heero to integrate the few simple but effective blocks Wufei had taught him into his defense. It had been obvious from the first two blows how this was going to end. Heero really was the perfect soldier, Wufei thought, the usual mixture of reluctant admiration and slight resentment tingeing the thought.

He'd...missed this, the feeling of being challenged by someone who was probably better than he was. He didn't like this need, anymore than he liked being beholden to Howard for his help. But both seemed out of his control.

He never thought of it as a need before, more of a luxury. Then they'd gone their separate ways, almost a month ago. Since then they'd both been in dogfights, ambushes and the occasional reconnaissance mission. A lot of stress accumulating. Wufei had been in several battles with Nataku but they were soul-crushing mechanical affairs, mobile dolls swarming over him like a pack of rats, mindless and belittling. The sheer numbers had proven difficult, though, and Nataku had been let down by the abilities of its pilot once again. Now that Nataku was repaired, the bleaker feelings he'd suppressed to better deal with his mecha's maintenance had resurfaced, and started to eat at him. He'd needed the release of the black battle-storm blowing through him and before that blasted Maxwell had crept up to watch them he'd been getting it.

"Fair's fair," Wufei grumbled. Heero also had his needs. "I told you before, I'm as good as my word, Yuy."

In response, Heero merely jerked his head towards the back entrance to the repair bay, looking glum.

Wufei's eyes narrowed. "He saw you go for your gun, he wouldn't _dare_ -"

"Dare? Maxwell?"

"..."

"Exactly."

Now that was a dilemma. He didn't really care what Maxwell thought of them but...

Even when they'd all been living in each other's pockets back in the last safe-house, both of them had been getting along a bit better with the braided L2 pilot. Wufei found he could ignore, if not tolerate, the annoying flirting once he had an outlet for his tensions. And suddenly, and much to Wufei's surprise and relief, the flirting had virtually stopped, in both his case and Heero's. Their weary forbearance to the attentions was less interesting than their stressed annoyance; Duo had apparently concluded that they were both straight after all and had stopped bugging them, transferring his attentions to Quatre and Trowa who, though not particularly interested, endured them with good humour. Or complete indifference, in Trowa's case. Heero and Wufei's mood had improved overall as well. As a result the joint mission with Maxwell, followed by his stay on the ship, had been tolerable. The whole...arrangement had had knock-on effects on the group's stability that had been considerable.

Heero was a strategist and a dedicated soldier, and he wouldn't compromise that for his own need. Wufei could only imagine what Duo would do if he found out about the arrangement. It made the hardened warrior shudder.

When he looked up again, Heero was a foot away and looking right into his eyes. Wufei started, from surprise and from the weighing look he was being subjected to. And more. Heero hadn't suggested the revival of the arrangement on a whim, he was definitely in need of sexual relief. The look in his eyes was hotter than the beam of his buster rifle.

"So we go through with the arrangement?" Heero asked softly. Wufei nodded, suddenly uncertain. Not about keeping his side of their bargain, of course, but not sure exactly what he was agreeing to.

A hard hand grabbed his and jerked him forward. Heero spun and glanced around carefully - no Maxwell to be seen but that didn't mean this blissful state of affairs would continue for more than five minutes, which was generally the time it took for one of Heero's death threats to fade from his volatile mind. The L1 pilot grunted and dragged him off towards the side of the cargo bay. Wufei stared at the hard back, puzzled.

He was even more confused when Heero stopped at the foot of Wing, grabbed the zipcord and slipped a foot in the loop. Wufei's hand was abruptly released and he watched as the cord lifted Heero to the cockpit where he input his code, opened the hatch and walked in without a backward glance. Wufei hesitated, then grabbed the next loop of cord and hit the up button, supposing he was to follow. If he arrived and found a gun in his face he would know he'd guessed wrong. Heero was as protective of Wing as Wufei was of Nataku.

Wufei entered the cockpit hesitantly, wondering what they were doing up there. The space was way too tight at the best of times for...anything, and now it was full of tools as well. Everything was covered in dust sheets. Heero was doing a lot of work changing some burned-out panels, and soot and pieces of charred wire were littering the cockpit. What-

A hard hand grabbed him by the arm -he hissed as his wrenched muscles protested- and jerked him fully into the cockpit. He ended up stumbling against the sheet-protected command chair as the hatch hissed closed behind them.

Wufei didn't have time to turn around, hard hands shoved him forward again. He landed awkwardly on his knees in the seat of the command chair. A strong body slammed into his back, pressing Wufei's chest against the backrest, two arms pinned his shoulders forwards as they grabbed the back of the seat.

"Hey wait-" He started to panic, he still didn't know all that much about how men did these things together but this position was ringing alarm bells.

"No penetration, we agreed." A cold voice growled in his ear. The body pressing him to the back of the command chair ground against his... then again. Wufei swore and squirmed his arms from the tight hold. He grabbed the top of the chair to give him some leverage and feel a bit less helpless. Heero was kneeling on the seat of the command chair just behind him, hard chest squeezing Wufei against the backrest, locking them into position with his grip on the chair's back, but with his arms free Wufei at least had the opportunity of lashing back with an elbow if- not that he would. Winner's privilege, he reminded himself grimly. Anyway, how was this any different than having Yuy slam him down on his back and hump him like a dog?

Actually there was a difference, he realized very quickly. Staring at the back of the cockpit and squashed against the chair was giving him a moment of plain honest insight. The three previous times the arrangement had come into effect, things had happened as a continuation of the fight, Wufei pinned down by superior force, held down...somehow not responsible. Not rape, of course, but not fully a participant either. Whatever physical reaction he had was due to adrenaline and friction, no more...This...was somehow forcing him to fully accept the arrangement he had entered into; it was removed from the heat of battle, much colder and deliberate.

And of course, in this position -and squashed against the command chair- his own body was not really getting into the act. Not that he missed that part of course. No, that was actually really embarrassing, so he was glad to be spared that. Right.

The smell of burnt plastic and sweat was cloying in the small space. Heero's breathing was rasping in his ear, stirring the hair that had gotten loose from his ponytail when he'd been slammed forward. He could feel more, that was distasteful; he could feel Heero's hardness thrust against his ass, just along the top of the split near the base of his spine, grinding the material of his pants into-damn it man hurry up and finish already! Heero's head dropped as the movements became more pronounced, Wufei could feel hot breath searing the flesh of his shoulder, near the thin strap of his black shirt. If Heero put his mouth on his skin at this point Wufei was going to go berserk, arrangement be damned!

Heero's strong hands ground the back of the command chair he'd been using for support. The only remotely good thing about all this was that Wufei wouldn't have bruised wrists this time. Heero gasped, going rigid against the Chinese man's back for a few thunderous heartbeats. Then he leaned back a bit in the chair, panting. Wufei, grumbling internally, scraped himself off of the back of the command chair with some relief. Damn, Dr J had certainly not spoiled Yuy with any comfort here, the thing was like a board.

A hand slid into the space he'd made between himself and the backrest, pressing him against a hard chest, dragging him a little further back, while the other hand dropped from the back of the chair to his belt.

"That's okay, I don't require anything," Wufei snapped, pushing away harder. But Heero had put one leg down on the ground and was bracing himself, it was like pushing against a wall, and the hand slid down the front of his pants.

"Yuy!" Wufei snarled, putting his own hand down to catch Heero's. "I said I don't-"

"Fair's fair." A voice, still husky from his own pleasure, growled in his ear.

"But-"

"We have an arrangement. I also keep my word."

At that point Wufei could have explained that his side of the arrangement was the battle that preceded it, but then if that was entirely true he would have said something the last two times. Damn. He had a feeling Heero knew this anyway-... He didn't want to think about that. At all. So instead he tried to find a curt, down-to-earth and manly way of saying 'I'm not in the mood' that didn't make him sound like some damn whimpering woman. He continued to push away from the command chair, and Heero continued to lean back into him, one knee blocking him in the back and body braced and both hands-

Wufei realized that there was something else different about this position. Heero didn't need his right hand to pin him down - and Wufei realized just how strange it was that Wing's pilot had continued to play along with the illusion he was somehow forcing Wufei into taking pleasure when it had to be obvious to both of them that this wasn't the case. It had never occurred to him.

Wufei was making a lot of discoveries at that point, staring blindly at the back of the cockpit. One of those was...Yuy was even better with both hands.

Wufei's mouth was free. He could have protested, shouted, or just calmly told Heero to stop, and the other youth probably would have. The only thing he managed was a half-vocalized protest that ended in a moan. He was still shoving against the back of the chair with arms that were beginning to shake, Yuy was still grinding into his back with equal and opposing force, a savage test of strength, but his hands were definitely free...Damn it! This was all because of Maxwell! If he hadn't come snooping around - oh!- then Heero would have eventually pinned him down after a proper - Wufei gasped and flinched forward - match and...Wufei savagely bit his lip to stop himself from completely tearing away whatever shred of dignity and appearance of self-control he had as his whole body shuddered and melted into the hard, certain touch.

All Maxwell's fault. His arms were trembling as they barely stopped him from sinking back against the command chair. He tried to focus, his heart hammering in his ears. He'd have to-...he'd definitely have to go and-...do _something_ horrible to Maxwell... later...

"Use the dust sheet to clean up. And bring it with you, I'll wash it." The voice was practical and uncaring behind him, and he suddenly realized he was alone on the command chair. He heard the hatch hiss behind him, and Heero take a step out, waiting for him. Wufei glared around the interior of the cockpit. Right at this moment Wing seemed more responsive and considerate than its owner. At least a Gundam only did what was asked, and didn't try to outguess-...

"Next time we'll find a place we can spar uninterrupted," Heero added as Wufei gathered the dust sheet and rearranged his clothes.

So next time it would be back to normal, although using the word normal in the context of their usual warped relation was probably an offense to anybody who'd ever opened a dictionary.

Back to normal...Wufei, body still shaking a bit, ruthlessly crushed the small curl of disappointment that twisted down at the bottom of his mind. Just as he tried to ignore the way his body was humming, or what it was that Heero had done to him exactly... He was definitely trying to forget that. Right, back to normal.

But next time he wouldn't have bruised wrists at the end of it. He had the feeling that Heero was through catering to his professed reluctance to the entire arrangement. Wufei shook himself. It was stupid anyway. He was doing this, he might as well get the full benefit and no bruises. And, to be perfectly honest with himself... having Heero's rough hands on him wasn't quite the distasteful inconvenience he wanted it to be.

He thought he caught a look out of the corner Heero’s eye as the latter grabbed the zipcord and descended. But Wing's pilot didn't say anything. Wufei thought Yuy understood the reluctance he'd had to bow to the needs of the flesh. It was infuriating, to be distracted by the body that should obey them; Wufei knew Heero found it so as well. At least they could both get rid of the urges as efficiently and quickly as possible, with no emotional wastage.

Maybe this was, all in all, not such a bad arrangement.

By the time they reached the cargo bay door they were discussing a detail for a joint operation in two weeks' time, and completely ignored violet eyes spying on them from down the hallway.

The war against OZ continued unabated.


	4. Pretty When You Kill

"Hello, Matezi's...Colonel! It's been a while since we spoke...Paul. Remember? Short, shoulder-length red hair? I was with lieutenant Sanders?... Oh, I'm just babysitting the phones, Mrs Linde had a previous commitment tonight...Oh she does, but only for a certain select customer, if you see what I- oh, you know about that. Yes, rank has its privileges. Speaking of which, what can I do for you, sir?"

The plastic smile trembled on the edge of feral, violet eyes gleamed, but the voice was light and soothing.

"Tonight? Ah, that may be a problem. Xian Hu is away tonight, tomorrow night as well. So's Jiansheng, he's your other preference usually, right?...Yes, we're very busy these days, what with the troops returning from the colonies...Well, you know, if you're interested, we do have a couple of new arrivals which you might like. Thoroughly vetted by Mr Matezi of course, our usual standards."

Mocking violet eyes flickered over them. Wufei dropped his gaze, not wanting to break Duo's concentration with a glare of fury.

"Very nice, very polite...Of course...Oh sir, I wouldn't suggest them otherwise, but they're sixteen, the both of them. Fei is perfect for you, but if you care to try something a bit more exotic-" Heero's eyebrow twitched a fraction "-Ro is mixed blood, and the prettiest dark blue eyes you ever-...Yes, shoulder length, black, and very beautiful black eyes. Hm-hmm. Say colonel..." Violet eyes narrowed like a cat going in for the kill while the voice oozed with charm. The braid was given a quick, self-encouraging tug. "To tell you the truth they're both, well, new. I was wondering...I'd have to run it by Mr Matezi, but maybe we could do you something, well, a package deal, so to speak? Seeing how you're one of our most valued patrons. Yes, both. They're really quite cute together." Wufei felt the couch groan beneath his clenched fingers. "Hm-mm. Well, I guess...that shouldn't be a problem." A sharp thumbs-up. "Very well. I'll give them the usual passes, and they'll give the code to the gate sentries, that's if Mr Matezi okays this but it shouldn't be a problem...Yes sir...Very well, and a pleasure as always. Have a good evening, sir."

Duo dropped the phone back on its hook and rubbed the bridge of his nose as the smile melted from his face.

"Got you both in."

"Hn." It was an approving grunt. Wufei knew they were all relieved. The assassination should be easy enough now, but getting out afterwards was still going to be a challenge. Wufei unclenched his fingers from their death grip on the edge of the couch.

"You guys really sure about this?" Duo muttered, turning tired eyes their way. "’Cause personally I think the guards will shoot you on sight."

"We'll have the codes he gave you to identify us," Heero said sharply.

"You'll have the codes, the fake id, and no idea what you're doing. He has people to check you over, you know. I made you both out to be fresh meat so you might get lucky, but to be honest...you're both as cute as buttons, but if I were a mark I'd rather pick up a case of VD than either of you. You stink of trouble. Damn, if this asshole didn't have a thing for Asians, this would have been easier."

"In that case we would have deferred to your prior experience," Wufei muttered, anger and tension letting his words slip loose.

"Blow me, 'Fei'."

"There's not enough money on earth for that, Maxwell."

"God, he's talking trash already, what have I created?" Duo stretched. He'd barely slept since the mission parameters came in. Wufei thought he should tell Maxwell he'd been impressed at how efficiently their communications expert had bypassed all security, isolated the phone lines from all of their target's locations, set up a filter to route a call to a particular number to their hacked line, and done the necessary research into Matezi's to be able to answer the call when it came, imitating one of the regulars there. Wufei hadn't even known what an escort service was.

He probably _should_ give Maxwell a pat on the back - since Heero wouldn't - but the words died in his mouth.

"Explain to me again why we can't just go in there and take this animal apart with our Gundams?" Wufei muttered instead.

"We need to make certain of the target," Heero said as he got up from the couch. "And I still think you should stay here."

"Sorry, Ro, this is a package deal or Fei goes in alone," Duo said quickly. "The colonel has...tastes."

Heero scowled. "You should have tried harder, Maxwell. And until the mission starts, use our proper names."

"Tried harder?" Duo glared. "I got you both in!"

"I'm the only one who should be going in, I have the appropriate training."

A manic grin. "As a hooker? Heero, you never told m-"

"As an assassin, baka!"

"Well it's Wufee or both of you, so make up your mind. Come on, let's get you guys ready to part-ay!"

Wufei and Heero shared a look of resignation as Duo bounded off with his usual energy, braid flying, towards the bedroom of the town-house.

 

 

"And there you go. Man, you look so pretty! Say, just how much _would_ it cost me to - okay, put down the weapon, I was just kidding."

Duo ruffled his bangs as he examined his work. Wufei glared at him and tugged the t-shirt again.

"Don't pull, bud. It's supposed to hang like that. You got real hot abs you know that?"

"Drop dead, Maxwell."

"You're supposed to bat your eyelids and say, 'I'm glad you approve' or something. Still, looking that pretty I doubt they'll listen to what you have to say." Maxwell's cheerful leer ignored Wufei's scowl. "What do you think, Heero? You in love yet?"

Heero slowly raised his head and gave Duo a death glare that made the L2 pilot wince. He then glanced at Wufei and sneered. He visibly did not approve. Wufei couldn't blame him.

Duo leaned forward to clean up the light line of kohl around Wufei's eyes. "I'm glad you're going in with backup, Wufee," Duo's voice had dropped to a whisper as his eyes slid sideways, "but as far as getting in goes, I don't think you're the one who's the liability."

They both glanced at Heero who was checking the base's layout on his laptop one last time, the scowl still on his face. At least he was dressed, Wufei thought, annoyed, trying not to tug the t-shirt down again. Heero had too many scars to wear a cut-off outfit. He was dressed in tight jeans and a sheer long-sleeved blue shirt that Maxwell had picked out for him when the plan had first been conceived. It was of vaguely Asian design and matched his eyes, which Maxwell had made up a bit, highlighting the oriental slant. He looked exactly like an assassin preparing for a hit, nonetheless. Hence Wufei's outfit, which showed more skin than he thought legally possible, and which would, as Maxwell put it, 'keep their eyes glued to your ass so hard they won't even be able to _look_ at Heero!"

The crude statement didn't make Wufei feel any better, strangely enough. He was striving hard not to get a glimpse of himself in the mirror, or even form a mental image of what he looked like, lest his ancestors rise up from the dead and denounce him on the spot. But he was willing to believe that people would probably be looking at him - like a freak - rather than at Heero.

"Well, okay.. time you got going." Maxwell's eyes were worried. "Oh Wuffers, here."

"Wufei."

"Whatever." Duo slipped a black and gold elastic around Wufei's wrist.

"I need more decoration?" Wufei glared at the thing and made to tug it off. He was already wearing a choker of square coral beads around his neck and a jade earring. He was willing to concede Maxwell probably knew what was needed to complete the mission, but more jewellery had to be going overboard.

"It's for the hair." Duo tilted a chin at Wufei's straight locks falling forward and framing his face. "For when things go south. And I know they will."

Wufei narrowed his eyes at the elastic. Now that he thought of it he'd seen it before, at the end of a long braid. " ...Very well," he muttered. It was actually quite a good idea.

"Well, you guys look gorgeous so off you go. I'll watch the colonel's phone lines and play merry havoc with their security systems as soon as you get inside." Maxwell gave an enthusiastic pat to the console Heero had set up; the base's security system was hacked and ready to go. Duo followed them to the door of the safe-house. "You have the codes and ID, hopefully that will get you into his HQ digs, and maybe even out again. Say guys?"

They glanced back at the braided teen leaning in the doorway behind them.

"You know I'll be monitoring and recording through their cameras, right? While I'm looping the feed to fool their security?"

"Yes?" Wufei frowned, their respective parts of the plan was clear.

"So if the colonel gets you two to do something kinky together before you kill him- "

The door slammed shut an instant before Heero's fist crashed into it. "Baka!"

"- just remember to smile at the camera! Hey give me a break, I could make a killing selling those shots!" The cheerful voice was muffled by the door. "Good luck!"

"Come on, we'll be behind schedule if we run him down and skin him," Wufei said resignedly as he turned towards the taxi waiting for them.

 

 

How did I get myself into this...Wufei relaxed his features, trying to look young and unsure -he knew he couldn't manage seductive if his life depended on it, and in this instance it did. Maxwell had been right, it was a good thing he'd insisted they were both 'new'. The L2 pilot had been on the money for the entire deal in fact; people were staring at Wufei -with contempt, surprise, pity or lust- and completely ignoring Heero.

In fact the extent of Maxwell's cunning was such that he was still alive even after suggesting this plan after the mission parameters came through. He'd been smart and suggested it to Heero first who'd nodded and said he'd do it. Duo had said what a wonderful idea that was but _unfortunately_ the target had _tastes_... So Heero had asked Wufei to come along just in case he couldn't get in, and Wufei had been unable to protest to those cobalt blue eyes. They knew no shame, no doubt, no limits. The mission was all. Wufei knew with a feeling of resignation that he was going to have to choose between one more shred of the dignity he'd kept from a previous life - before the war, before the storm - and whatever slight respect there was for him as a fellow warrior and ally in Heero's eyes.

It irked him, this...need for Heero's esteem. But there was no denying it. This series of attacks was the first mission he and Heero were doing together. He knew Heero had some small consideration for him as a martial artist and thought he was dedicated and...essentially, Heero thought Wufei had 'his heart in the right place', but then again, so did Sally Po and her pitiful band of rebels. Wufei had his own doubts about his strength, his worth, but he was damned if he was going to let Heero lose sight of his effectiveness as a warrior. He knew how little the perfect soldier considered the fighting abilities of others. And maybe Wufei didn't have the physical and mental advantages of having been raised for assassination and terrorism, but that did not mean he could be discounted.

In the end, that and the fact that the mission was necessary tipped the scale. Duo (who Wufei was starting to think was probably less stupid than he let on) had actually helped a bit by occasionally reading out some of the juicier details of their target's long, honored career. The man was a bureaucrat, a politician, a cultivated and refined man. He'd killed more people than the five pilots put together without even lifting a weapon. Some of his exactions...Wufei felt he could put up with a lot to bring justice to that sort of vermin. The political blow and the propaganda that would result from his assassination in the colonies, who'd suffered the brunt of the man's crimes, would do a lot to help the growing resistance there as well.

The two guards who'd escorted them in from the front gate led them to the ante-room of several of the luxurious suites set aside for officers visiting the base. A man was waiting for them besides a small desk where a laptop was humming. Wufei recognized him from the pictures they'd studied. He was the colonel's attaché and right-hand man; a small dapper gentleman in a uniform that had never seen action, with thinning brown hair despite being only in his thirties, and thin long hands he stretched out for their IDs, his eyes flicking over them.

"Right." He scanned the IDs that Maxwell had stolen from Matezi's and thoroughly doctored. "These check out. Been working for Edward Matezi long?"

"No. A month," Wufei answered. The man looked him up and down once more.

"Hm, well, you'll do I guess. Up against the wall and spread them."

Wufei stiffened even as he heard Heero move behind him to comply.

The colonel's attaché looked at him again. "Never been to Alliance HQ before? It's standard procedure. We search everyone."

"Oh." Wufei noticed the colonel's head of security and bodyguard stand up from a chair at the far end of the room. He approached the attaché, eyeing Wufei carefully, hand on his side-arm. The two guards who'd escorted them over were still behind them. 

Wufei let his eyes widen in feigned surprise (and hopefully innocence). "You think I'm hiding a gun?"

The attaché grinned as he dropped uninterested eyes over the tight black leather shorts which barely covered Wufei's ass, and the dark red cut-off t-shirt. "Okay I'll grant you that one."

"Wall," the bodyguard said, gesturing, hand still on his weapon.

"Is that necessary?" the attaché asked him wearily.

"Yes. There's quite a lot he could be hiding even in that outfit. Simpsons, do this one. I'll do that one." The bodyguard's eyes had fixed on Heero with a suspicious glare. The guard who'd been heading towards Heero with a metal detector nodded and grabbed Wufei by the arm, shoving him without too much force against the wall.

They weren't hiding any weapons, so Wufei didn't worry about the sweep; he worried about the bodyguard's scowl as he carefully felt Heero up from ankle to collar. He didn't think they'd be searched so thoroughly. Wufei knew quite well what that body felt like, but even a prostitute could work out, right? He ignored the guard's hands on his own sides. If the man asked Heero to strip...Wufei had an almost tactile memory of scars through a thin tank top. He tried not to tense in anticipation of violence as the guard's hands lingered on his hips.

Wufei's glanced quickly and discreetly at Heero, eyes catching on his expression. He never thought they had a chance of getting even this far, he'd agreed with Maxwell on that one, certain he should have tried this alone. But Heero had surprised him. The instant they'd left the taxi, an expression Wufei had never seen had settled on Heero’s face, something even beyond his usual blank look. Eyes slightly wide, face passive, mouth relaxed into something not quite a vacant smile. Despite the beauty of the regular features, he was suddenly someone you wouldn't glance at twice. Odin Lowe, Wufei remembered; that was the name of the assassin who had trained Heero to be a child killer. ‘Raised’ was not the appropriate word for someone who had probably encouraged Heero to cultivate that expression and the mentality that went with it.

Unfortunately the bodyguard had been trained as well. His job was to look beyond the obvious and twice at everyone. He spun Heero around and glared into the cobalt eyes, then took a step back. The other guard let Wufei turn around with a casual pat to the rear that the latter ignored from the dark focus of incipient bloodshed.

The bodyguard flipped open his cell and dialed a number, eyes on them both burning with suspicion.

"Hi, this Matezi's? Who is this? Paul who?...Okay, I'm calling from Alliance HQ, we have a couple of your guys here, is that correct? Can you describe them to me?"

Wufei listened to the small buzz of Duo's voice chattering away. The braided pilot had grumbled something about 'perfectly _paranoid_ soldier' when Heero had forced him to bypass and filter the lines from all phones belonging to the attaché and the bodyguard as well as the colonel's secretary and aide, apartment and office. It was a lot of lines to secure, but fortunately he'd complied. Heero's thoroughness was paying off.

The bodyguard's eyes were still suspicious, but he looked mollified. "Fine, can I talk to Matezi? Or his organizer?... Oh, when will they be available?... Okay, I can wait."

He put the cell against his shoulder and glanced at the attaché. "Ask the colonel if this one-" a glance in Wufei's direction "-will do for now. I want to get the other one vetted first."

The attaché shrugged and walked to one of the thick, elegant oak doors and knocked. "Sir? The- your guests have arrived. Can-"

Heero punched the bodyguard in the gut, ripped the gun from the man's belt as he fell, shot the two guards who'd barely started to lift their rifles and spun to fire at the attaché who was fumbling with the strap holding his side-arm in its holster.

Wufei cursed and lunged for the door as a final shot behind him finished off the bodyguard writhing on the floor. The heavy door was locked.

"Out of the way," Heero snarled. He walked up to the door and slammed the reinforced wood and metal open with one savage kick. The gun shot up, fired twice.

"Let's go," Heero muttered, kneeling by the bodyguard to take two extra chargers from the man's belt. Wufei glanced through the door at a sprawled figure in casual dress, the head splattered across the back of the couch by the two shots that had scored there. Then he bent to get the attaché's sidearm.

"Chang. Strip him and put his clothes on," Heero barked at him as he went to the door and glanced out prudently.

"Why?" Not that he'd complain about getting out of this outfit.

"You stand out a mile. Lose the shorts too, they creak."

"I'm supposed to stand out a mile," Wufei grumbled as he slipped out of camera's range -he didn't need Maxwell's input on this- and stripped himself and the attaché quickly. "That was the plan. That and getting inside the room, kill the Colonel, wait an hour or so and hopefully leave _without_ a fight," he added acidly. Now...it would be a miracle if the gunshots hadn't alerted anyone. Wufei tore off the choker, furious at the whole situation. Beads scattered about them with a noise of fleeing rodents.

Heero didn't look repentant. "Maxwell is an idiot. Neither of us looks like a prostitute." Which was probably the nicest thing he'd ever said to Wufei, but he didn't let it distract him. Mainly because Heero's body language said that, even if he didn't think Wufei looked appealing in his getup, he didn't look like much of a killer either. There was something condescending in the tilt of the head as he glanced back at Wufei. 

"Is that why you didn't wait for the door to open before attacking?" Wufei asked sharply as he struggled into the attaché's fawn dress pants.

"The bodyguard was a pro, he would have taken me away from the room before he let that door be unlocked."

"Not such a pro, or he'd have searched us in another room entirely," Wufei sniffed. "They were about to let me in though. I could have done the hit and come get you."

"Not efficient," Heero grunted.

"If the door had been reinforced steel beneath the wood, we'd have been screwed," Wufei growled, angered at the implication that he'd needed Heero on this. He grabbed the bodyguard's cell. "Maxwell?"

"Hi guys. Hey Fei, why'd you change, you don't look nearly as darling like-"

"You have their security bypassed?"

"Yes, but it's not good, I'm afraid. Oops, wait...Two guards! Running towards-"

Two shots echoed out from the doorway.

"Okay scratch that." Wufei heard the click of keys on the other end of the phone. "Unfortunately they called in before investigating. The alarms are offline thanks to yours truly, but the call went through... lemme see... shit! Half a dozen coming in the front of the building! Two out back-"

"We're going out back," Wufei snapped, ripping off the earring and straightening the attaché's t-shirt. The uniform jacket and shirt had been too bloodied from the headshot. Not that they were going to be able to bluff their way out even in full dress regalia. "Come on, Yuy."

 

 

The siren shattered the darkness like a scream and a new sun rose in every corner of the base, swinging to and fro and slicing the night to shreds.

They shared a glance and broke into a run. Subtlety was a lost cause.

"K'so," Heero muttered, sliding to a crouch behind a concrete balustrade. Wufei chanced a glance. Below them was the courtyard leading to the small north exit, the one without a mobile suit patrol. At least fifteen men were milling around in the flashing lights of the watchtowers as they poured out of their barracks, waiting for an order.

Shouts behind them. They couldn't wait for the men to get organized and leave. Wufei quickly gathered his hair out of his face in a ponytail with a silent thanks to Maxwell for the fastener.

"Here."

Heero grunted, eyes on the men below, then looked around in surprise as he realized Wufei had shoved the attaché's gun into his free hand. "What- Chang!"

Wufei threw himself over the balustrade, landing in a crouch on the hood of a jeep parked beneath. Ten meters distance. He leapt off the jeep in a squeal of suspensions. Someone shouted. Eight meters. Wufei ran, swift and low. A soldier lifted his gun - five meters. A shot from behind him and the man went flying. Now they were all turning-

Five more steps and Wufei was in the middle of the tight knot of soldiers. One blow crushed the vertebra of a man who was just turning to see what the fuss was about. Wufei vaulted over the falling body, barreled into another man, pushing him into a third. Soldiers shouted and bumped into each other. Someone tried to grab him. Wufei sent a deadly elbow into his face, slipped from the loosening grasp of the dying man, leapt forward towards another taking hasty steps back and raising his rifle, swung and kicked him, hard, sending fractured ribs plunging like knives into his chest. He leaned into the kick and dodged a wild blow over his head, twisted and grabbed the man's arm and slammed it across the knee, shattering bone before punching him in the jaw.

The courtyard was a mass of confusion, some men lunging towards the quickly darting figure, others standing back to get a clear shot, shouting at their fellow soldiers to get out of the way. Concentrating on the dodging, whirling killer in their midst, no one realized that any who raised a gun on him was instantly gunned down from above.

Wufei felt something sting his ankle, flying concrete from a bullet strike. He dodged again and threw himself into the nearest knot of soldiers; proximity meant the others couldn't fire. He sent a deadly fist into someone's throat, then he grabbed and shoved the choking man into an officer raising a gun at him. He sent a leg back out in a swinging kick to knock the rifle out of a soldier's hands, twisted, ducked, came up punching someone who'd leapt at him, grabbed and spun the stunned man around with him, using him as a shield as a hail of panicked bullets clattered around them.

Behind him the officer shoved the choking soldier off of him, raised his gun at Wufei's back. A shot from above and the man's head exploded into blood and bone. Wufei ducked as he saw someone aim at him from the side, felt and heard the bullet sing above his head, then an impact that jerked his arm. He dropped his human shield and hurled himself across the space at the man firing at him, dodging to throw off his aim. The soldier cursed then went wheeling back, blood pouring from a bullet hole in his neck before Wufei could reach him.

Then Wufei was on the brink, left with only a few enemy but all at a distance, raising weapons and taking aim.

A man screamed and clutched his chest. Wufei ducked and weaved, but no one was firing at him, and a glance over his shoulder showed him why; Heero Yuy was calmly walking down the steps towards the courtyard, both guns firing, mowing down the remaining soldiers. Wufei grabbed a fallen weapon, glanced up at the watchtower above them. The lights had been still for awhile now, he realized. A dark figure hung from the side of the tower. Heero must have taken them out too. Wufei brought his attention back on the action, shot a soldier hiding in a doorway and aiming at his partner, then ducked another wild shot in his direction from another opponent before the man jerked and thrashed under the bullets Heero sent thundering into him.

Echoes of the shots died away behind them as they both started to run without a word towards the exit.

"Are you injured?" Heero asked crisply, as they both slowed to a brisk walk that was less likely to attract suspicion. They were a few blocks from the camp, back among streets and alleys, plenty of escape routes.

"No. Nothing serious," Wufei amended. His ankle was bleeding, and a bullet had grazed his forearm, a two inch-long rip in the skin. Not deep, but it would require stitches. That and a few bruises. "You?"

"Unharmed. You were lucky." Heero sounded angry still.

"One of us had to be." Wufei shrugged. They wouldn't have outgunned that many soldiers in a straight fire fight if he'd not served as a distraction.

They dodged into an alley and took stock. They were far enough away now. Time to figure out where they were, and go round the long way back to the safe-house.

"Maxwell?" Wufei lifted the phone as he glanced around the alley. Heero was at the entrance, noting the street signs. "We made it."

"Cool! I'll get stuff ready here. The base is in chaos, I don't see any kind of search party getting ready. They don't even know what hit them, someone started shouting about a Gundam and now they've all got their noses in the air. Man, what did you guys do?"

"Heero blew some stuff up in passing. They had an inadequately protected MS fuel tank which- never mind. We should be back in an hour or less. Get ready."

"Aye aye, Cap'n!"

Wufei leaned against the cold brick of a warehouse and breathed, closing the phone with a weary click. He glanced up at the footsteps approaching. "Maxwell says there's no sign of pursuit."

"Hn."

"Let's follow the back alleys for awhile though to be on the safe side."

Wufei glanced up at the lack of answer (or grunt). Heero was looking at him steadily, eyes narrowed, very different from his previous passive expression. Weighing him. He seemed to do that a lot, Wufei thought. Was he so condescending towards other people's abilities that a show of skill surprised him?

"You are an efficient killer, Chang."

Wufei met the gaze carefully. The eyes were the customary blank pieces of glass, but the body language gave the look a different meaning. It wasn't the same as usual. Wufei wasn't being weighed for his abilities, his usefulness to Heero's overall mission, his utility in some form of arrangement or other. Heero was looking at him. Chang Wufei. For probably the first time.

Wufei shrugged, not knowing what to say, not even sure if it was a compliment, a statement of fact, or merely a cold evaluation. Then he motioned Heero forward, rooting through the pocket of his borrowed pants. Heero moved towards him, frowning, interrogative. Wufei scowled, the attaché had not kept a handkerchief in his pocket. Damn. He used his thumb. Heero flinched and started ever so slightly at the touch, as Wufei wiped away the faint line of kohl that sweat had dragged along Heero's face. It had been bugging him since halfway through their escape.

"We need to clean up," he muttered, showing Heero the dark streak on his fingers. "We don't want to stand out." He realized with some annoyance that his hand was shaking, the after-effects of adrenaline. He glanced up to ask Heero if he had similar streaks on his face and was met by a gaze like a machine gun.

An inflexible grip around his neck crushed lips into his own. A hand like steel dropped from the small of his back to his butt, and a hard groin ground against his.

We don't have the time for this; the pallid thought was scattered on the remnants of the hurricane winds that had blown away fifteen men in less than five minutes. Wufei tried to remember their escape plans and the graze in his forearm and the fact that _he_ didn't really need any sexual release from adrenaline, that was something he controlled...but all he could recall at that moment was the way Yuy had walked down the stairs, a gun in each fist dealing death, a smile colder than the dark barrels on his face. Wufei found himself shoved against the wall, his arms wrapped around strong shoulders, lips moving in a fierce kiss of his own. He growled as his back was ground against gritty brick. He could feel the scratch of Heero's jeans against the dress pants and his own hardness. The adrenaline and battle fury were ringing in his ears. Heero's sweat and the smell of his hair overpowered the dank air of the alley. Wufei, not caring anymore, lifted his legs around strong hips and used the wall scoring his back through the t-shirt to thrust back against Heero. Wing's pilot snarled, an animal sound, the hand on Wufei's hip bruising, the other one on his shoulder controlling their movements somewhat. Wufei gasped, his head thrown back as he felt a burning surge of bruising pleasure quickly rise through him. Heero, no longer able to reach his lips, buried his face in his shoulder in an open-mouth kiss that was more of a bite.

Wufei felt the wall crumble behind him, throwing him into dark, roaring pleasure that tasted of battle and blood. When he returned to the alley his hands were leaving their own bruises on Heero's back and the L1 pilot was panting into his shoulder, slight shudders running through his frame. Wufei shook his head, trying to clear it. The alley was swaying as he caught his feet beneath him.

"Let's go," Heero muttered, breaking the hold and glancing up and down the lane.

" ...Yes." Wufei staggered a bit then caught himself, one arm against the wall which was, all evidence to the contrary, still perfectly intact. He shook his head sharply. At least his hands had stopped shaking now. He grimaced a bit as his stolen pants rubbed a cooling wet spot against his groin. Hopefully they'd have time to shower and change before they had to evacuate, or they would both be regretting the time out for their mutual... relief.

\- Heero's eyes on him, 'efficient killer', both guns blazing finality -

Well maybe not actually _regret_...

The thoughts flashed through his mind almost too quick to follow. Why had he done that he hadn't felt the need of course he had it was only natural after throwing himself into such a life-or-death situation and Yuy was okay with it so might as well get rid of it as efficiently as possible and he wasn't going to regret doing so when there was a war raging around them damn it. Then he stopped thinking and let the warrior take over, with some relief.

A smear of fire and sirens lingered on the night behind them as they started to run back in silence to the safe-house and the war.


	5. Caught In The Cage Of The Other

Wufei knelt on the cot, hands on his thighs, his bare feet folded beneath him. His eyes were closed and his spirit as calm as it could be in the circumstances. The meditation wrapped him in silence and light, keeping the fury and pain momentarily at bay.

The position annoyed the night guard tremendously. Almost twice a shift he'd come in with a friend or two and kick the pilot around. Wufei encouraged this by immediately adopting the same position again as soon as the guard left. The man was a sniveling coward who couldn't even strike him that hard. And one day soon he would make a mistake.

...Silence, light... The cell, the cot with a foam mattress and no bedding, the simple stainless steel toilet, the remains of his evening meal in a plastic container without utensils, his itchy, annoyingly light paper uniform - OZ had had too many run-ins with suicidal pilots to take him lightly on that account. All faded.

It had been a week since his capture, he thought. The first day was a blank. The gun-runner who'd betrayed him, who'd rigged a voltage mine on the case of missiles he was buying, had overdid it a bit in his nervousness and Wufei had been in a light coma for over twenty hours while his burns were treated by the OZ forces he'd been sold to. They still itched and hurt, but that slight sensation was a wisp of a breeze against the backdrop of the howling tempest beating at the walls of his meditation. The fact that he'd been weak and stupid enough to get captured burned worse than the wounds.

When he awoke from the coma, he was looking up the nostrils of an OZ interrogator. After two or three introductory threats, the man had said the nicest, kindest thing anyone had said to Wufei since he was a child.

"So, boy, now you'll tell us where your Gundam is!"

They hadn't found Nataku yet.

The interrogator had flicked on a vid. It was the second day since his capture, and OZ troops were carefully searching the area where he'd been taken in successively widening circles; squirming little men swarming around the landscape, Aries leaping like flies from hill to hill looking for the better half of his soul. His Nataku was well hidden though, and it would take them several days to find it if they hadn't already.

The interrogator had started his sessions immediately, trying to get Nataku's location out of him. Wufei knew how to ignore pain, rise above it in a state of nearly constant meditation. The manhandling of his burns and the professional bruises he picked up were easier to ignore than the affront. Did this man think that he would betray Nataku for a beating? Wufei's temper was more at risk of breaking his mental discipline than the torture was.

Two days of interrogation were leaving him feeling better and better. Physically they couldn't get too creative yet, because of Wufei's recent injuries and dire threats from OZ HQ indicating he was needed alive. If the man thought that yelling at him and repeating the question again and again would break Wufei down, he couldn't be more wrong. It was a morale boost each time he stuck his thick, hair-speckled chin in Wufei's face and shouted “Give me the location!”

The video feed was more alarming. They left it on day and night while he was strapped to a gurney and machines monitored his heart-rate and blood pressure. Using meditation and sheer willpower, he never allowed the readings to even quiver to indicate whether they were getting near their goal or not. But he saw how the OZ troops were more efficient than he'd given them credit for and were moving forward rapidly to the area where he'd hidden his beloved.

By the end of the third day, Wufei realized that if they hadn't found Nataku yet, then that meant that one of the other pilots had been faster on the uptake than he'd thought, and had evacuated the machine already. He distinctly saw through the monitor feed - once more, probably not _meant_ to encourage him - a small three-man detail of Leos troop through the low ravine where Nataku had been hidden. His partner was safe.

He celebrated by concentrating and freeing his right wrist from the restraints in one savage kiai, sinking the interrogator's nose-bone into his brain at the end of the movement. The cowardly fool really did have an aggravating voice. The beating that followed almost killed him in his injured state. At that point, with Nataku safe, he was almost hoping it would. But he awoke alive and aching in a cell.

OZ must have figured out his Gundam was now out of reach as well for they were no longer in any hurry to interrogate him. He was moved twice while still nearly immobilized by the beating, and ended up at his present location, much to his surprise. Not in a prison, but the four-cell brig of some big military base. He'd been there two and a half days now. During the day, he was drugged and asked for the location of the other pilots. He suspected that his captors were now worried said pilots were going to try to silence him, hence his new fortified location. For the moment they were still going easy on him. The real fun would begin when he was well enough to be sent to OZ HQ, with sufficient secrecy so that no-one would be able to intercept him. There they would have the medical facilities to ask some serious...questions. He didn't much care what happened to him at this point, but he owed it to Nataku and his comrades and the war to get out if he could, before his transfer occurred.

Maybe tonight would be the night. Maybe the sadistic guard and his friends would be a bit more careless, not leave two people watching the monitor screens, not keep one man out of reach. He would only have one shot at it. Evening was falling outside, one more hour until the change of guards. He sank back into-

Sirens exploded throughout the base. 

Wufei was moving before the first banshee ululation had waned.

The door was solid and reinforced but Wufei had noticed on the first day he'd been shoved into the brig that the underpinnings of the lock were weaker than those of a proper prison cell. A normal man would not have been able to do anything about it. Even Wufei couldn't do much with cameras monitoring his every move and four sentries guarding the entrance to the brig at all times. Now however...

He stood before the door, ignoring his burns and contusions, and concentrated his center. It took only a second, he'd been preparing for this mentally for the past two days, all his focus and intent on that one square inch of metal he'd have to strike to crack the lock keeping the door shut. He straightened, felt his whole body and soul come together in a harmony of balance and purpose, and gave the door a savage kick right on the sensitive area. It took three goes, but the lock finally ripped open with a crack, silent against the scream of sirens.

Wufei was out the door before it had even crashed into the wall and ran up the hall to the entrance of the cell block. Only two guards were there, looking out the window instead of at the monitor feed to his cell. The other two had probably run outside to see what the disturbance was. Fools. Weak, pathetic, undisciplined fools. It would be a pleasure to kill them if it didn't imply touching them.

The guards disposed of, he shrugged into one of their coats, boots and cap, grabbed a rifle and ran.

Sounds of explosions and an occasional shudder in the ground beneath his feet proved that the alarm wasn't a false one. Some kind of attack. Wufei's heart accelerated. Not many people attacked OZ bases these days.

People were running in panic or quiet controlled purpose, ignoring him. At the door leading out of the command block, the checkpoint guards had their back to him, waiting for a possible attack from outside. He killed them efficiently. One of the alarms was probably for him at this point, but no one cared. He ran past men shouting orders, platoons forming near anti-aircraft cannons, mobile infantry regiments running towards their vehicles or their suits. People cringed and glanced upwards again and again as if they expected to see angels of death descend upon them, which was foolish. The disturbance was still at the other end of the large base, echoing with explosions and the crackle and bang of return fire. Wufei didn't bother glancing back, knowing that smoke would cover most of it at that distance. It didn't matter. He ran in the opposite direction of the disturbance, until he reached a low shed near the perimeter fence. He sat behind it, panting, cracked ribs and raw burns aching and ignored, and waited.

After a few minutes the scream of mortar and the crash of shells crept nearer, and, overruling it all, the swish of a very big thermal weapon. One he knew well. He crept cautiously forward and glanced around the edge of the shed.

Wing and Sandrock were making mince out of the base. Wufei nodded approvingly as Wing's beam sword cut through a communication tower and efficiently pounded it into the ground. Sandrock was holding back a bit and providing cover, darting after any tank or mobile suit that was foolish enough to challenge them and slicing them in two with its wicked shotel.

"You- Who are you!? Stand up! Keep your hands where I can see them!"

The explosions had covered the soldier's approach. What was he doing way out here at a time like this? Wufei wondered as he turned slowly, hands raised. The guard stared at him. "What-?! Who- stay back!" Wufei had taken two slow steps closer. The guard kept his rifle pointing unsteadily at Wufei's chest as he nervously pawed at his belt for his communicator.

Wufei's dark eyes followed his movements, fastened on the comm. device. "How nice of you to bring me that," he commented politely.

A minute later, Wufei was sitting - on the unconscious soldier, since the ground was very cold through his paper prison uniform pants - and fiddling with the communicator, wishing he had Duo's skills with this sort of thing. He ran through the frequencies in sequence, setting up a pulse through the memorized channels that would decode the pilots' communication broadcast. Finally a crackle, and he could hear voices.

"01, 04, do you copy?" Wufei barked.

//- nobody is firing at us now, Heero! Stop it!// Winner, always forgetting to use code numbers. //I tell you he's still alive!//

//Unlikely.// Yuy.

"01, 04? Come in."

//I _know_ he's still alive! Look, you watch my back and _I'll_ go in and search for him, okay?!// Winner was practically yelling, his voice caught between anxiety and anger.

//Negative, reinforcements will be here soon.//

//If they arrive and I'm not back, you can damn well shoot me too!//

//No, we can't let them have your Gundam.// Heero's voice was as uncompromising as ever. Wufei found himself nodding in approval. Yuy's strength and focus were a credit to his training and his dedication to a life of battle.

//Heero, for god's sake!//

"01? 04? It's 05, I'm-"

//Either help me destroy the base or shut up, 04. Leaving him for interrogation is not an option. We only have a few minutes before -//

//Heero, I got something on comms.// Winner's voice was suddenly neutral and all business. //It's our frequency.//

"01!"

//Scramble.// Heero said, as predictable as a binary switch in his laptop, and Wufei snarled in silent fury as his communicator whined and lost Wing's signal.

//01? Drat. Come in, who is this?//

Wufei glared at his fingers, forbidding them the slightest tremble as he tried to fine-tune his settings.

"04, it's 05. Do you copy? I'm on the east side of the camp."

//Hee- 01! It's him, it's Wu- it's him! Damn it-// A whine of changing channels and hurried words cutting in and out.

//05?// Heero's voice came back online, coldly assessing.

Wufei froze, hands light on the communicator, barely daring to breathe on it lest he lose the painfully attained setting. "Yes, it's me. I am currently near the east of the camp, ten o'clock to your present position."

//Status? Did you escape?//

No, they took me out for a walk on a leash! "Affirmative. Which is a good thing because Sandrock is standing on what used to be my cell."

//Oh my god! Wufei I'm sorry, we didn't know where you were being kept, I-//

//Shut up, 04.// Which took the words out of Wufei's mouth. //Keep me covered, I'll pick him up.//

Sandrock stood still, ready to intercept any reinforcements as they arrived. Wing ran with clanging gait to the east of the camp. Wufei quickly shed his borrowed coat, dropped the rifle on the unconscious soldier, and carefully made his way out into the open where Heero could see him, away from any buildings that could be hiding troops. He knew the reason Heero had opted to recuperate him up rather than Quatre, despite having a buster rifle which was much more convenient for picking off reinforcements than a pair of shotel. If there were any signs this was a trap, Heero wouldn't hesitate to get out, leaving a smoking crater behind him. Quatre would draw the same conclusions and react as quickly, but would try harder to save and not silence a fellow pilot, at a possibly high cost for all.

Wing crunched to a halt a few meters away, sword at a ready. Wufei ran forward and scrambled into the hand the mecha had stretched down for him. He balanced as he was lifted, and leapt as soon as he could towards the opening cockpit, remembering Heero's mention of reinforcements on the way. He squirmed inside the hatch as it opened and landed heavily on the small bit of floor space next to the command chair where he could squeeze himself and not get in the way. Heero didn't glance at him, hands flying over the controls as he closed the hatch and turned the mecha around.

"04, I have him. We're pulling out."

//Great! Is he hurt?//

"He's mobile." Heero clicked off comms before Quatre could ask for further details.

Wing started to lumber forward and Wufei winced as a console on one side and the edge of the command chair on the other poked into his sore ribs.

The next few minutes were a blur as Wufei concentrated on staying where he was despite the shaking of Wing's cabin. Heero's concentration was absolute and he'd probably forgotten the very existence of his un-strapped passenger. Wufei hung on grimly, waiting for the Gundams to outdistance pursuit and adopt a steadier pace.

"Chang?"

Wufei blinked. After so many days on the edge of his mental endurance, not to mention the drugs they'd pumped him with, he'd instinctively slipped into a meditative trance like an animal darting for cover. He glanced up. Wing was on autopilot, moving smoothly, and Heero was sparing him a fraction of his attention, the rest of it riveted by the monitors showing no signs of pursuit.

"Chang, how badly are you injured?"

"I'm fully functional," Wufei answered automatically, then realized he wasn't being asked to fight anybody. "Mainly superficial injuries. A lot of bruises, some burns along my left side, a cracked rib or two, not broken I think."

"Internal injuries?"

Wufei glanced at his fingernails, which were still a healthy shade of sandstone-pink. "No."

"Anything else?"

Wufei shrugged. "The usual cocktail of antidepressants and disinhibitors. Quite mild as I was in a stage one coma for a day, and I'm still recuperating from electrocution and a boot-party. They were only warming me up, they wanted me healthy before sending me to the HQ interrogation facility."

"Hn."

"Do you have Nataku?" His blood stilled as he waited for the answer.

"Yes, we pulled your Gundam out of its hiding place a few hours after you were captured."

"I owe you my life." Wufei wasn't talking about the prison break and Heero knew it. "Where is it?"

"Somewhere off to the northwest, in the desert. Winner's troops are guarding it."

Wufei fell back down in his nook, limbs suddenly weak. Nataku was safe. 'A few hours' after he was captured? Strange, how did the others know his Gundam needed evacuation? They shouldn't have missed Wufei for three days at least. Never mind, the important thing...

"Where is it exactly? When can I go get it?"

Heero's attention was still on the monitors and he answered slowly. "When we get to the safe-house, in an hour. Winner will take you there. Rest until then."

Wufei nodded, but, now that the howling storm that had roared through his mind for the past few days was finally trickling to a tired, defeated breeze, he noticed something odd about Wing's pilot. Heero was speaking in his usual cold tones, maybe even more detached than usual. His eyes were hard and bright in the light reflected from the monitors, his gaze slightly fixed. His body language...Maybe he was always like this in Wing, Wufei thought. It wouldn't surprise him.

The swaying jarred him, his head and sides ached, and the self-directed anger pummelled his soul. He'd failed, he'd been captured, he'd lost Nataku, however briefly, he'd put the others at risk to come get him- It was more a savage blow of emotions than relief that allowed him to sink into unconsciousness.

"Chang."

Wufei twitched, reaching for a weapon that wasn't at his hip anymore.

"We've arrived."

A hiss of opening hatch and Heero was reaching towards the zipcord. They were in a dark space, a hangar, Wufei noted. Broken mining machinery, long abandoned, skulked in a corner where they'd probably been shoved by one of the mechas.

Wufei frowned more and more as he followed Yuy across the shadowy space. Heero's footsteps echoed where they were normally silent. His shoulders were still stiff. Whatever was affecting him, it wasn't due to piloting Wing.

Wufei did not have the time to inquire. Or the desire. Heero's problems were his own. That was the way they worked. They shared their strengths and a mutual physical relief, not their problems. Wufei wasn't about to lay his self-loathing at his capture on Heero's shoulders. And a good thing too. He'd get a sneer of annoyance in lieu of sympathy. Which he probably deserved, but he didn't need Yuy to provide it.

A blonde bullet shot past Heero and grabbed Wufei before the Chinese pilot could react.

"Winner! Get off!" Wufei snarled, before realizing that he wasn't being hugged but his wounds examined with quick, gentle hands.

"You _are_ hurt... " Quatre's eyes widened as he took a step back, his gaze lingering on the burns from which the dressings had begun to slip.

"Just bruises," Wufei snapped, and quickly walked on, embarrassed at what he saw as needless fussing. Yuy was giving him that cold, hard smirk that passed for humor in the chilly assassin. Damn him too.

"Wufei, stay with Sandrock!" Quatre said over his shoulder as he ran to the safe-house next to the hangar. "I just need to grab a few things and we'll be off."

Wufei didn't feel like moving any more than necessary. But he found himself trailing after Heero anyway. He tried to focus his mind; something was bothering him. Probably the thought of spending the long trip to wherever they were going in Winner's company.

"Yuy, why is Winner taking me to Nataku? I mean, where are you going?"

Heero took another step then glanced back. Wufei noted the delay in reaction and started to frown. "I'm staying here. I have a mission in the south of the country tomorrow afternoon and this place is much closer than Winner's hide-out."

"A mission? Tomorrow?" Wufei was tired and his mind still slightly dazed from the day's cocktail of mild drugs, he couldn't pinpoint why this was worrying him.

"Hn." Heero's eyes and face were the usual cold mask. Nothing strange. Wufei followed him into the house.

It wasn't much, the old residence of the man in charge of watching and repairing the mining equipment for a shaft that had been out of use long before the war had started. It had no rooms. The kitchen was a small thing that sprang up around a cracked porcelain sink along one side of the wall near a grimy window at one end. A door leading to the garage and the bathroom stood at the other, wood so warped with weather and age it wouldn't close properly any more. A three-legged stool stood at the kitchen table, pale blue paint peeling and matching the cracked linoleum of floor and tabletop. The bland peeling wallpaper rose to the rafters. The roof was corrugated iron packed with torn foam for a minimum of insulation. The small scurry of rodent feet echoed from the space above them. A single large mattress with two sleeping bags, probably a recent addition, lay on the floor next to the fuel heater standing alone and ugly against one wall. Wufei was singularly glad he wouldn't be staying here. Winner's safe-house would probably be the usual mansion, and much preferable.

Heero put one hand down on the ground and sat down on the mattress. He leaned forward and plugged his laptop into the free-standing electric generator he'd recharged in Wing, and the small dish that allowed him to connect to the outside world and do all the electronic damage he wished to OZ's cyberspace defenses. He began typing without looking back at Wufei, who was staring at his back, at the line of the shoulders.

Wufei followed the rattling noises to the bathroom where Quatre was packing his things.

"Wufei? You could have waited in the hangar. Oh, you probably need to use-"

"No." Wufei turned on the tap. A cascade of beige water smelling of iron fell into the cracked plastic that was yellow with age. He splashed his face, avoiding the bandages on his left hand. He passed the tepid water over his neck.

"Auda will check you over when we get to our destination." Quatre's eyes were warm with sympathy as he tracked the visible bruises and burns on Wufei's hands and face. "Trowa's in Australia, but Auda knows enough first-aid to get by. Sorry I can't check you now, or let you rest, but I'll barely have time to get into position as it is. I have a mission tomorrow. I hope Duo won't do something rash and start attacking that shuttle port without me." Blue eyes narrowed in worry. Duo and patience weren't even close acquaintances. "I'm supposed to be there already-" He interrupted himself. Wufei didn't need to know how much his capture had inconvenienced the others. Talking of which...

"How did you find me?"

Quatre threw his toothbrush and towel in the duffel bag and went to the mattress to grab his sleeping bag. He gave Heero a cheerful wave - which was completely ignored - and headed out the door while talking over his shoulder.

"It took some effort! They kept moving you around. Trowa started the search, but he doesn't have the hacking skills. Heero and Duo were both unavailable. Duo was in outer space until yesterday, and Heero was finishing that three-day mission on the coast. Trowa did his best, but he didn't have a clue where to start looking, and he had to keep moving too, what with Shenlong in a flatbed truck and roadblocks everywhere-" so it was Barton who had found and rescued Nataku."- and did his best but... then Heero and me arrived and he left. He had to fly to Australia, to get Heavyarms and complete his mission there, you know, he's trying to infiltrate that base near Sydney-"

"I know." Wufei’s mind was running. He remembered the particulars of Heero's three-day mission, they'd been exacting, as always. "So you and Yuy got Nataku from Barton and then did Yuy get some rest?"

"Rest?" Quatre blinked. "Er, I don't know, I guess." His aquamarine eyes blinked owlishly at Wufei from the darkness of the hangar.

"You weren't with him?"

"No. I took Shenlong to the Maganacs myself, to make sure that it was stored properly. Heero stayed here, used his laptop and broke into OZ records and managed to find out where you were being kept. Unfortunately-"

"Yuy was alone here?"

"Er, yes."

"So then what?"

"Well, when it became obvious you were in a heavily fortified area we couldn't easily infiltrate, and that he'd need my help for a frontal attack, we got together- why are you worried about Heero?" Quatre's intelligent eyes and sensitive mind were focusing on Wufei, curious, as he paused at Sandrock's feet.

"Does he look all right to you?"

"Um yes? He's a bit tense - actually his mood has been foul - but he's the same as usual apart from that."

"You don't think he looks tired?"

"Tired? No, he's been full of his usual relentless energy." Quatre looked momentarily tired himself at the thought.

Wufei looked at the intelligent blue eyes carefully. How could Winner not have noticed? He wasn't a bad warrior, even though he was not of Wufei's or Yuy's calibre. And he had this space-heart nonsense to rely on. But then, that read the emotions and Wufei doubted Heero had much going on there. Wufei could only read Heero's body, and that was almost certainly more informative. Which meant Wufei was probably right...Damn fool!

None of Wufei's business. His priority was Nataku. Though of course, his beloved machine was safe already, thanks to the efforts of others. All the more reason to go where he belonged, the place where his soul dwelt. Nataku needed its partner. Who was also safe due to the efforts of others...Wufei's face remained impassive, while inside he was ripped apart. Partner...Nataku...partner...

"We're four hours away, I'm afraid. One hour to the hangar where we stashed our carriers, then three to reach Rachid and his men." Quatre's voice echoed from inside Sandrock's cockpit. "This space wasn't meant to be shared, it's not going to be very comfortable. I grabbed my sleeping bag and pillow so you can-"

"Don't bother."

"Come on, you're injured. I know you're tough, but-"

"I'm not coming with you."

A moment of silence and Quatre's blond head shot out in the space far above Wufei's head.

"What?! Why not?"

"Yuy needs me here for something." Which wasn't exactly a lie.

"But you're injured-"

"I'm fine. We'll be rejoining you after Yuy's mission."

"No!" Quatre snapped. "I don't care what Heero says, you've been through enough! What does he think- he didn't even discuss that with me! I'm going to-" His foot felt for the zipcord loop in the dim light of the hangar.

"I take it you're headed for the Kuru shuttle port?" Wufei said, calmly and clearly though he felt like shouting. "You'll be there faster if you don't have to detour north. I'd rather you stop Maxwell from doing anything stupid than baby my bruises. I'll stay here while Yuy is on his mission, I'm not required to fight."

He could feel Quatre stare down at him from the hatch.

"Go. I'll be fine."

"...Okay." Quatre didn't sound too happy but he must have realized he didn't have the time to argue. Wufei heard the hatch close as he headed back out of the hangar, leaving Sandrock a clear path.

He hesitated at the hangar door, as Sandrock maneuvered out and prepared to leave. He could be wrong - Nataku forgive him. He had the feeling that if he just went in and asked...he knew how that conversation was going to go and he was too tired to argue. He walked carefully around the house and entered through the garage door, partly stuck open with rust. His bruises ached as he squirmed beneath it and his paper uniform caught and tore on a jagged edge of corroded metal, but he had to hurry and get into the house before Sandrock was far enough for Yuy to switch on whatever motion sensors he had covering the place.

The back door inched open slowly and Wufei ghosted in, wishing he had Maxwell's abilities for this. Not that he thought he needed them and that was the problem. Heero was sitting on the mattress in the same position as when Wufei had left. He was staring at the screen and occasionally his finger twitched to scroll down. He was facing the front door, which meant his back was to Wufei. The L5 pilot shook his head disdainfully and approached slowly, after slipping out of the thick oversized military boots. The floor was cracked and ragged wood beneath linoleum and his bare feet, he moved them cautiously. It creaked once or twice but the figure bent over the laptop didn't move. Wufei angled so he could approach from the side to avoid his reflection appearing in the screen. He was two meters away, breath shallow, watching the rowdy chocolate hair glow in the dying light of the sun pouring through the window.

"You're wide open, you know."

Heero was up like a snake, laptop slithering from his knees, gun out and pointing -Wufei already had his hands raised. Heero’s breath caught in a strangled gasp in his throat. Wufei stared into two wide blue eyes. Heero was speechless for a few seconds, the gun still pointing at Wufei's head.

"Chang! What the hell are you doing here?! I heard Sandrock leave!"

"Did you set the motion sensors?" Wufei asked, practical.

"Wh- of cou-" Heero's eyes suddenly unfocused, then he muttered 'Che!' and turned towards the laptop. He knelt and picked it up, checking it -with a nasty glare in Wufei's direction- then quickly opened a window and typed in a code. Wufei heard a faint beep from the door as the wireless connection activated the sensors in and around the house.

Wufei put his hands down, crossed them across his chest, winced and decided to sink to his knees on the mattress instead. Heero glared at him as he settled down again, babying the computer on his lap.

"Why are you here?"

"Why do you think? Skip it, Yuy, just tell me what you're on."

Heero's eyes narrowed. "On?"

"Amphetamines? Or something J cooked up?" Wufei corrected himself. Yuy wouldn't do street drugs.

Heero stared, then turned towards the laptop and started typing. "Neither. It is a mental program similar to self-hypnosis. It increases my awareness and capacities despite lack of sleep. It is draining, but not damaging."

Wufei snorted. "Oh yes, you're in full fettle. You normally let people creep up on you."

"I was concentrating-..." Then Heero frowned. Wufei knew that despite his cold calculations and his mental 'programs', Heero wasn't a computer; he could delude himself, at least for a little while. But when you shoved facts under his nose, he didn't try to squirm away and reinterpret them like normal people would. It was too brutal for the word honesty; more like lack of any kind of self-awareness or comforting self-image. A weapon didn't need any.

"I appear to be impaired," Heero said slowly, eyes turned inward. He wasn't self-conscious or embarrassed, but annoyance was beginning to make an appearance. Wufei remembered Quatre mentioning Heero being in a bad mood. Great, if he wasn't careful he'd be collecting more bruises before the evening was out.

"Yes. I imagine your... program is very good, but probably not meant to be used for so long, or after an intense three-day mission."

"Its operational parameters were never clearly defined," Heero admitted.

"And I suppose you couldn't do anything more than catnap here. You'll be out like a rock for hours once you let the tension drop." And with no one to watch his back, Heero wouldn't let himself do that.

"You know this program?" Heero's eyes searched his own with something like curiosity.

"Not as such, but I have read about states of conscious trance that are similar. Though no one I know could maintain it this long and continue operating." Once more Wufei felt that reluctant admiration/rivalry/resentment towards the perfect soldier.

"How could you tell? Winner never mentioned anything. I don't think my mental state is abnormally-"

"Body language."

"... "

"Since I'm here, why don't you let me do something-" Wufei waved a vague bandaged hand towards the laptop "-and keep watch and you can pass out."

"Is that why you stayed?"

"Yes."

"You're wasting your time," Heero said without sympathy. "The program I'm running will take several hours to bring my adrenaline and dopamine levels back under control. I won't be able to sleep during that time, and then I will require at least twelve hours of heavy rest to recuperate. I don't have the time before the mission."

"And staying awake until then will get you shot," Wufei snapped.

"The mission is a short one." Heero turned back to the laptop with a touch of condescension in the lines of his body. "I can operate efficiently until I finish it."

"Oh? Let's see." Wufei leaned forward and snagged the laptop before Heero could react. He only glanced at the mission parameters - they came from J, that's all he needed to know; they'd be on the far side of impossible. He didn't give the laptop back though, merely put it down on the floor, then used his own 'program' - the sudden rush of willpower and adrenaline that could force speed and strength from his weary body despite his injuries- to catch Heero's left arm as he reached for the laptop.

Lithe arms tensed abnormally strong muscles but a fraction too late. Wufei already had one hand twisting Heero's in a thumblock, his bandaged burns ignored. His right hand fastened on Heero's neck, fingers searching. He ignored the gun that was centering between his eyes again.

"Perfectly efficient, yes," Wufei said sarcastically. Heero's eyes blazed, but the gun dipped. For a second. Until Wufei's fingers found the spot he was looking for and squeezed.

"What the hell!?" Heero twisted, but couldn't get out of the thumblock without injury.

"Shut up and take it like a man, Yuy," Wufei sniffed, ignoring the gun that was pointing his way again. "You can bear a lot more pain than this."

"What I can or can't bear isn't- what are you _doing_?" Heero snarled. Wufei's fingers released the hold on his neck, dropped an inch and reapplied pressure again. Heero grimaced, but didn't move this time and the gun clunked against the floor near the mattress.

"I've seen you do this after your kata," Heero growled. "This is some kind of pressure point method? What are you doing? Explain."

"Insuring you don't get arthritis of the neck in your old age," Wufei said, with one of his rare streaks of outspoken humor. "But that's incidental. If you terminate your...program, this will allow you to relax your muscles and climb back down to a state where you can sleep, hopefully within the hour."

"You don't know anything about my program," Heero said coldly. "You can't be sure-"

"No, but I am sure that I managed to get you into a lock while covered in bruises and burns and with a cracked rib or two, so do you have anything to lose?"

Heero muttered something very unflattering in Japanese -who it was meant for was actually not clear- and subsided. Wufei dropped the lock and applied both hands to the task. Heero glared straight ahead as if the oxygen in the air had insulted him.

"Get your top off and lie down, I'll do your back. If you think you can stand the pain, that is," Wufei added solicitously.

Heero gave him a look that could have turned coal into diamonds and jerked off his tank top before lying down on his stomach stiffly.

Wufei worked quietly and efficiently along the vertebra, not feeling much in the way of relaxation in the muscles. He hoped Heero wouldn't be stubborn about this...no, that wasn't how the perfect soldier operated. He didn't let pride get in the way of efficiency and excellence. It was one thing that Wufei admired about him, though he didn't want to.

"Why didn't you go check on your Gundam?" Heero asked abruptly. His twisted his head, eyes narrowed, trying to catch Wufei's.

"It's been in safe hands for the last week." While I rotted in jail. "It'll forgive me for not rushing to its side until after tomorrow. It needs its partner to be at his best."

"What is taking care of me to do with being your best?" Heero grunted as a particularly hard jab of Wufei's fingers dug into his tailbone at the edge of the spandex.

Wufei tried to think. Tried to think of a way of saying this that wouldn't give Heero the wrong impression.

"I'm injured, I might as well recuperate here, and incidentally make sure you get back alive. Wing and Nataku make a good team. Keeping you functional might spare my mecha some injuries in the future."

Heero's eyes narrowed further...then flickered closed for an instant that was too long for a blink. He was beginning to come down from the high, Wufei realized, suddenly hopeful that he wasn't wasting his time here. He knew from experience that done properly, the pain/pressure stimulus could do wonders for locked muscles and blocked energy paths. Wufei started to alternate pressure points and slow hard kneading of the muscles around them, to induce some form of relaxation. As much as Heero was capable of. It felt like he was massaging concrete. His fingers crept up the spine to the scalp, applying force to the seams of the skull and the pressure points above the ears, then rubbing the skin beneath the messy locks. Heero began to blink more frequently.

"How did Barton get Nataku out?" Wufei asked suddenly. "Winner said it only took him a few hours after I was captured. Turn around."

Heero looked puzzled as he rolled over onto his back. Wufei grabbed the pilot's right hand and began to apply pressure with pin-point accuracy to the joints of fingers and wrists. The arm was about as supple and relaxed as Wing's, but he thought that would change. Already there was less of that screaming unnatural tension in Heero's shoulders.

"Barton was checking some of his own sources that day. He heard from one of them that the gun-runner you were meeting might have been compromised. He arrived at the same time as the first OZ troops. There weren't enough there at that point to form an effective roadblock or oppose him." Heero's eyes narrowed as they plunged into the Wufei’s gaze. "I was the closest. He called in and alerted me. I was about to leave on my mission, and none of the others were near enough to intervene. I told Barton to find Shenlong and get it out."

"I owe Barton a favor," Wufei said morosely.

"He had the opportunity of getting you out. He thought he could attack the convoy that was holding you captive and get you to Shenlong-"

"I'm glad you told him to forget about that brilliant plan," Wufei interrupted, voice cold and measured, though inside he felt hot at the thought that Trowa might have gotten himself caught trying to free him, and then Nataku would have fallen as well. Unacceptable!

Heero said nothing, but Wufei thought he felt him relax a bit, his eyes on him. Wufei dropped the arm he was kneading and glared, hugely offended. Heero nodded slightly, as close as he could come to an apology for suggesting Wufei would not think of the safety of his Gundam first. "Winner thought Barton should have tried to get both of you out, despite the risk. He's been complaining about that decision for the last three days," he said in lieu of explanation.

"And you're tired," Wufei grunted, picking up the left hand and applying the same treatment, up to the upper arm.

"Hm." Heero's eyes were slightly glazed and half closed.

"I guess no one saw what happened to the gun-runner?" Wufei asked quietly.

"Hm. Barton kept tabs on him and managed to intersect his path while avoiding OZ troops." Wufei stiffened in anger at the risk to Nataku, until Heero, probably sensing his tension through the touch on his arm, explained. "Wasn't too hard once he slipped through the first roadblocks, they were all concentrated on the area immediate to your capture. Barton caught up with the man after a couple of days."

"Oh. And?"

Heero raised his right hand, finger gripping an imaginary trigger.

"Too good for him," Wufei muttered, restraining the growl. He was trying to keep his voice low and monotonous, to lull Heero to sleep, but he was having problems. He was not making as much headway as he wished against the tension. Heero was definitely relaxing but it would take more than that to get him off the adrenaline high he was on so he could sleep. His shoulders were still rigid and recalcitrant, as Wufei roughly rubbed them, hunting down the dragons of nerve and sinew roiling under the golden-toned skin.

Cobalt blue eyes caught his frown and read it correctly.

"I may have compromised the mission." Heero's voice was quiet, but there was a dark undercurrent to it, his eyes focusing inward in self-directed anger. "I wasn't sure of the operational limits of the program. And the imperative to not leave a pilot in OZ hands was just as important. I kept thinking I'd found you, but they moved you several times before dropping you out of the prison system entirely." Heero's eyes followed Wufei's hands as they went over his chest, inch by inch, alternatively pressing hard against the sternum and kneading the muscles. "When I realized you were in that military base, it took me all the time before Winner's arrival to insure we had a plan to attack it and silence you as efficiently as possible. As we had no margin for error, the objective was to terminate you."

Wufei paused, his hands on the sternum, eyes wide as he stared at Heero's slightly challenging glare.

"I can't quite believe my ears." Wufei answered the question in the cobalt blue eyes, anger flickering in his own.

"You doubt I would dispose of you?" Heero's voice sounded menacing, as if this confirmed something he'd feared.

Wufei took his hands off of Heero before he did any damage and snarled. "Don't insult me more than you already have. I know you're tired, Yuy, but you're not talking to Winner or Maxwell here. And I can't believe I just heard you lie to my face."

The muscled body beneath him started to coil and gather like a snake as Heero's eyes blazed in the most anger Wufei had ever seen. "What did you say?"

"If you'd wanted to kill me, three shots from your buster rifle in the right place would have leveled that base before they even had time to gasp let alone call in reinforcements."

Their eyes clashed and Heero was the first to look away.

"Your termination was the primary objective," he said quietly, eyes on the ceiling, blank and unapologetic. "But I planned it so someone of your abilities had a chance of escaping."

Wufei's hands went back to Heero's abdomen and the soldier winced as anger fueled the jabs from his fingers. "I thought you knew me better than to suggest-" To suggest that because they had shared a few moments of intimacy, Wufei would think Heero might hesitate to sacrifice him.

Wufei didn't know how to say those words, but, from the way Heero's eyes dropped again, he apparently didn't need to.

"I do," Heero said heavily. He seemed put out by the entire conversation. He's realized he's made a mistake, Wufei thought, and it’s just one more proof to him that he's made an overall error in judgment by using this... 'program' and barely sleeping for, what, a week? "I was thinking back to a conversation with Winner. He seemed reluctant to kill you."

"Winner would have accepted the decision you made if he'd been the one to get caught. He can sacrifice his life as well as any of us." And you know it or you would not have allied yourself with him, or the rest of us either, Wufei added mentally.

"Yes, he probably would have." Heero sighed. "But believe my experience of the past few days; he's not good at making that decision on behalf of others, not without suggesting highly debatable plans."

"He _is_ an excellent strategist," Wufei felt obliged to point out, irritated at the way Heero couldn't seem to respect anyone's capabilities - Wufei's included.

"Yes, but we both had missions after the attack and no margin for- can we not have this argument?"

"Of course, you're right," Wufei grunted, reeling in his temper with some difficulty. He began tracing up Heero's ribs and sides. "In fact, you probably shouldn't have compromised yourself by giving me a chance. Which did allow me to escape," Wufei added honestly.

"I guess..." Heero's eyes had closed and he was beginning to sound tired, which indicated that the program had stopped, but Wufei didn't think this coiled spring beneath his hands would be able to sleep any time soon, and Wufei's fingers were beginning to ache sufficiently to penetrate his concentration.

A frown settled on the brow beneath the messy chocolate bangs. "It is very difficult to weigh sometimes. Each mission is important but not paramount-" Wufei, concentrating once more on the shoulders and lending his whole weight to it, nearly slipped and fell over at that minor blasphemy against the Yuy prime directive "- since they fit into the overall mission of Operation Meteor. That has a much broader definition and is harder to judge. Because of that - " the frown darkened into the familiar scowl "- I find myself putting up with a lot of distractions that I should normally be avoiding. It is...annoying."

I'm sure it is, Wufei thought bitterly, I'm sure _we_ are.

"Although your contribution to my overall mission is well defined," Heero continued practically to himself, eyes still closed and scowling. "We are all motivated and dedicated. But you also have intelligence and focus, and you despise distractions and mistakes. I didn't understand it to start with, your pursuit of improvement, of excellence, but I do now. I have even integrated it into my own overall mission plan."

"What...does that mean in Japanese?" Or English, or Mandarin if you know it, hell, use Esperanto or any other human language. Wufei had never gotten along too well with computers. And he found that he really wanted to understand what Heero was saying.

"I thought it would take time and a lot of effort to develop my abilities further, time I couldn't spare during the war. And I never thought training with someone else would be of any value at all. But I found that sparring with you has improved my combat skills overall even in a short time." Heero's eyes flickered open then closed again. He did not seem embarrassed at the admission. Wufei would have curled up and died if he'd had to admit someone else made him better, even though...

Even though, to be honest at least with himself, this was the entire reason he was here. Because Yuy made him better, the same way Nataku did.

"Sparring." Wufei began the slow descent of the ribs again, and applied pressure to the side of Heero's hips, at the joint. "So you would want to continue training with me even without the...arrangement afterwards?"

Heero lay unmoving for a few seconds, then his eyes opened slowly to stare at the ceiling. "You want to stop the sex after our matches." It wasn't a question.

"Yes. I think we would both get more out of our training and sparring sessions if there wasn't anything else attached to it." This was something that Wufei had wanted to point out before, but he never would have dared. He needed their battles, and he didn't think Heero would be interested without the arrangement. But apparently he was, so...

"Very well." Heero turned his head slightly, eyes fixed on the window where the last dregs of light were trickling from a dark blue sky. The laptop's screen illuminated the scene; a dark blue with a scythe cart-wheeling across it, the screen-saver Maxwell had installed as a joke and Heero had never bothered to remove. "I knew you found it somewhat distasteful, but I thought you drew similar benefits from it." Heero looked slightly broody in the light, but not otherwise angry. Maybe he was wondering about Barton, Wufei thought, surprised at the flutter of mixed emotions the notion evoked.

Wufei could let him. It would be easy to say and do nothing. But then, that wouldn't be honest. Or just. Or fair. Or even, in a strange, twisted way, honorable.

Heero was more relaxed, but still bucked and twitched towards his gun as Wufei let his hands linger -without pressure point application this time as this wasn't needed and he didn't want to get shot- on the front of the spandex.

"I don't find it entirely...easy to accept," Wufei said quietly and openly. "I was brought up in a hard school where the needs of the flesh were spurned. But since that time-" Only a year and a half ago at that "-I've had to abandon academe and get down to earth again, and I have to admit that I-...have needs on that level too. So I'd be a fool to turn my back on an arrangement that allows me to help alleviate this need without any strings attached. Also..." Wufei found the words to be almost harder to bear than what he was letting his fingers do. Heero's eyes were on him now, incandescent slits in the dark. "I think it is pretty obvious that our association has brought me some benefits beyond that. You...challenge me. In our sparring and in everything you do. I need that to bring out the best in me. You would probably say that you have become an important parameter in my own ongoing mission, and as such I need you at your best."

Heero grunted in understanding. His hands twitched at his side as Wufei let his hands trail up the hardening length beneath the shorts, then down again, slowly.

"I certainly don't need you gunned down on a mission because you weren't able to sleep beforehand...Is this going to help?" Wufei felt stupid for asking, didn't want to sound hesitant, but at this point the important thing was to get Heero to sleep, get him off the damaging high he was on, not worry about what Yuy thought of him.

"...I think it might," Heero muttered. His hands reached out to grip Wufei's shoulders hard, then dropped away as the L5 pilot involuntarily flinched at the steel grip on his bruises. Wufei concentrated on the movements of his hand; the right one, the burned left one finally giving him more pain then he could handle in his own tired state. He wished he'd been a bit less of a hypocrite and paid more attention to what Heero had done to him previously. He felt clumsy and awkward, but not embarrassed beyond that. Yuy was just too cold and dispassionate about sex; Wufei could almost believe he was fixing a machine.

The hands reached up to grip again as Heero's breath quickened. His lips curled in slight frustration. Wufei knew that the sexual release was only a part of the arrangement. Heero could manage that part on his own after all and probably better at that. But it seemed that the emotionally detached soldier who always kept a watchful perimeter guard around his very life needed the occasional human touch as much as the next social animal. Wufei had realized this before, understood it without sharing the need. He picked up Heero's hand and placed it on his shoulder, but couldn't help but wince again as the grip tightened.

Heero put a hand on Wufei's as it covered his hardened erection and, keeping it there, rolled away and over onto his side, grabbing the Wufei’s other hand over his back and drawing him near. Wufei found himself pressed against a hard spine, left arm around a shoulder and pressing a sinewy chest, the other sliding beneath the spandex -Heero twitched in his hold- to caress hard flesh, soft skin, a few veins, the slickened head, a pulse of rising heat. Heero clasped Wufei's arm to his chest on one of the unburned areas, the other hand wandered back to grasp the Chinese teen's hip as he leaned behind Wing's pilot.

We're going to need a towel, Wufei thought clinically, as he realized that Heero's lingering tension and adrenaline were making even his inexperienced efforts effective. He slid his hand out from the spandex -Heero let a slight puff of air escape from between his lips and stirred - and easily ripped off the top of his prison uniform, something he'd been longing to do for days. He dropped it in front of Heero and continued where he'd left off.

Heero leaned and rubbed his back against the bare flesh of Wufei's chest, like a cat marking its territory. Wufei, through the haze of pain, lingering medication and concentration, didn't find this arousing. Although...He glanced down at the perfect soldier arching in his arms, face relaxing slowly, eyes closed, his head rubbing back against Wufei's shoulder...he had a feeling this was going to make an appearance in some of his more involving dreams to come. Not that he was all that attracted to men outside of the necessities of war, but you'd have to be as dead as Kong Qiu to not find this at least somewhat erotic.

Heero gasped and surged back against him, as Wufei felt him tighten and give between his fingers. He slowly disengaged them, noting with some satisfaction that the line of the shoulders near his was finally relaxed, more than he'd ever seen them in fact. Heero was going to be in a coma when he finally let go. Wufei grabbed the prison shirt, and felt hands take it from him. He let Heero finish cleaning up, and used his sore hands to work on down the side of the leg beneath him until he reached the feet. He slipped off the steel-capped boots with some difficulty, his left hand throbbing alarmingly. He remembered seeing a first aid kit in the bathroom. He leaned back a bit to see if anything more was needed. Heero was on his back again. Wufei could work the shoulders and scalp one more time.

 

Heero turned on to his side and an arm snaked around Wufei's waist, pulling him down against the mattress.

"You?" Heero muttered, eyes closing.

"Too drugged. And sore," Wufei whispered. "I'm fine." Apart from the burns. And the bruises. And the ribs that Heero was pressing. And the slight feeling of emptiness at having to accept his need of someone else when it was so much simpler to be alone. Oh yes, just fine.

He tried to roll but the arm tightened. Wufei lay still for a few minutes, supposing Heero wanted that extra bit of contact...wait, not Heero. Neatly compartmentalized. Contact went with sex and outside of that there was the perimeter fence with big nasty metaphorical guard dogs around it. Definitely not the kind to spoon after-...

Shit, he's asleep.

Wufei stared at the barely distinguishable features in the gloom. The laptop had put itself in standby mode and starlight had yet to make much of an appearance. But the soft sound of breathing told him all he needed to know. Mission accomplished. Pat yourself on the back, Chang, oh wait, you can't, because you're pinned to the bed by an arm that can bend steel like bamboo.

Wufei tried to lift the limb. It tightened instinctively and came much too close to crushing his ribs for comfort.

The L5 pilot stared, bemused, at the black expanse where the darkness had stolen the corrugated iron of the ceiling. And found his own eyes closing despite himself.

No. This wasn't the way it went. They were not...They shared their strengths, not moments like this. They agreed that the sparring - and yes, the arrangement as well - made them better. But this wasn't necessary, and it was entirely unconscious on Heero's part. As for Wufei, he didn't need comfort, in fact he despised it, like he did anything that could weaken the raging determination that drove him. Which was why Heero was the only one he would be making this arrangement with, the only one who wouldn't taint something that was already complicated with feelings and attachments and offers of comfort. The only thing Heero would offer him was scorn if he went to sleep when he was supposed to stand watch. Besides, his burns needed attending.

He squirmed out carefully from beneath the arm, relaxing when it tightened until it loosened again. Then he stood up carefully. Fortunately Heero was practically comatose, it gave him some leeway to walk away without waking him and getting shot. He stared down at the figure cut out in monochrome against the mattress.

If he's the only one I could make this arrangement with, it doesn't hurt that he's so easy on the eyes.

Wufei didn't like the way his subconscious mind occasionally dropped things like that upon the rails of his normally rigid thoughts, and he couldn't help noticing that when it did, it had a distinct American accent. This was why he wanted to stay solitary. But even he -hell, even Yuy, and that _had_ to hurt- had to admit that he was stronger with others than without.

He turned and limped off to the bathroom in search of bandages and some clothes, his body finally presenting the tab for the demands he'd heaped upon it the last few days. It was going to be hard to let Heero sleep as long as he needed to. But he would do it. He was counted upon to do it.

Wufei wasn't in the habit of letting his own flesh get in the way of the needs of war.


	6. Battlelust, part I

The mantra was an important part of any meditation technique. A prayer, or a soothing sentence, or even nonsense syllables designed to calm the spirit and put the mind out of reach of the mundane world.

"I mean, he's worked as an acrobat, right? So...flexible! Oh god, I could do him all night long!"

_Mustn't... Kill... Maxwell_ was not a traditional cantrip, but Wufei couldn't think of any other at that point.

"But he'd probably prefer to be on top...What do you think, Fei? D'you think Tro would let me be on top?"

Mustn't...Kill...Maxwell...

"Fei? You awake over there?"

The casing of the binoculars creaked under Wufei's fingers. He tried to relax before he crushed them.

"You dare to suggest I would sleep during a mission?" he asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the image of the base. His voice could cut glass.

"No no, buddy, it's just you haven't been answering any of my quest-"

"Maxwell, _shut up!_ "

"Why? This is boring enough without being quiet."

"Nonetheless we need to concentrate on our objective," Wufei ground out.

"Yeah, well, that would be easier if I wasn't so bored."

"Sleep." Before I knock your lights out for you.

"Well _that_ would be easier if I wasn't so horny. Man, I haven't gotten laid in ages!"

_Neither have I,_ Wufei found himself thinking. He savagely screwed his concentration back on the base's loading facility, waiting for the consignment of mobile dolls that had miserably refused to show up for the last two days already. Damn it, he wasn't a distracted chatterbox like Maxwell who couldn't think further than his groin. Even if it had been three weeks since _that_ time after his capture. It didn't matter. His ribs were now fine, he had been back on duty for two weeks - and so had Heero, on the other side of the planet. Not that that mattered, except that it left him stuck with Maxwell.

"We're all feeling it. I mean, we're sixteen, we're constantly on the edge...well, when I say all of us, I don't mean _you_ of course." Soft snort.

More than three weeks actually, because it wasn't as if that last time, jerking off Heero in the mining shack, had done anything for Wufei, other than give him some interesting dreams.

"Or Mr Heero 'I Pretend I Don't Know How Hot I Look In Spandex' Yuy. I thought he was really getting hot for it there at one point, but then...ah, well, maybe he found a way of getting some..."

Then there was the week of being a captive and kicked around before that, hell, when _had_ they last - _who cared_? Damn it, he needed to focus.

"Although I don't see where he would be seein' some action. Wait a minute..."

Wufei glanced over at the cot where Duo had gone rigid, eyes staring at the ceiling, voice suddenly wrought with tension.

"Wait a minute! It couldn't be-...that he's screwing-...Wu-Wufei? Y-you-" Duo shot up from the cot, staring in shock at the L5 pilot.

Oh shit. Wufei stared back, trying to keep his impassive mask over a mixture of aggression and apprehension.

"You-...you don't think he's doing Relena, do you?"

"Fool!"

"I mean, this is war and a man gets desperate!"

Mustn't...kill...Maxwell...Wufei's glare through the binoculars was about to set the hangar doors on fire.

"I hope you're right," Duo said with a sigh, settling down on the small army cot as if Wufei had given him a long counter-argument. "That'd be a sickening thought, the perfect soldier and the perfect airhead going at it like weasels. Ugh." Bored violet eyes glanced around the abandoned attic they were currently camped in.

So far the mission had lasted a week. Wufei did the backup and his half of the surveillance. When a shipment of mobile dolls came in, Duo infiltrated and found out where it was going and when it would arrive, adding a tracer to the consignment for good measure. The suits were shipped in small bunches now. Oz had had enough of their larger convoys being targeted by the Gundams. But many of those small transports of suits went through this base. So Duo broke in and found out where the dolls were being sent in secret for collection and storage, and fed the coordinates to the other three pilots. So far, Wing and Heavyarms had each destroyed an impressive number of suits, hitting the areas where they were being gathered together before being distributed to Oz special force units or sent into space. Soon, Quatre would come to relieve Wufei, and Nataku would have its long overdue chance for battle based on the information Maxwell was providing. Wasn't Heero operating in Sanq last week? Damn it, now he was thinking-...Mustn't...kill...Maxwell...

"Man it's too bad that boy is straight. Now there's one who would definitely be on top, and I so wouldn't mind! God, he can nail me to the mattress any day or night he chooses. We don't even need a mattress, he can do me on the floor if he wants." Wufei's hands twitched, making the image dance in the binoculars' sight and he cursed himself for a weak fool in two different languages. "I heard Asian men were sma- er, never mind. Um. Anyway, I saw him coming out of the shower that time in Sanq and oh boy. Damn, I'm still drooling. Seeing him naked could strike you blind! Just about perfect in fact. Perfect proportions, and a perfect fit for me. We'd go together like lego! On my back, or on my hands and kn-"

Wufei interrupted with a strangled croak. "Maxwell," he finally said. "You are indispensable to this stealth mission. Your vocal cords are not. I suggest you shut up. Now."

Duo shut up with a sniff, which had a strange quality of appreciation to it. It was almost as if he enjoyed the more spectacular threats hurled in his direction, but that made no sense...Wufei hauled his concentration back to where it belonged by the scruff of its neck.

A whole week of Maxwell's strange one-sided conversations...The need for secrecy meant that Wufei couldn't leave the small attic they occupied near the base, and he couldn't do anything physical to Maxwell either. It had started out with a few rambling reminiscences of past missions and Duo's time with Dr G and his training. That had been acceptable, especially once he gave up on having Wufei reciprocate. Then, as the L2 pilot's boredom grew worse - only occasionally relieved by the dangerous stealth missions - he began making jokes, or telling stories of his childhood on L2, or making up intricate soap operas about the lives of the soldiers patrolling the hangar they were watching. He also tried harder to get Wufei to 'open up' and talk about his own past. Wufei was about ready to give Duo a detailed account of every day of his life from early childhood up to his marriage if that could wean Duo off this latest subject of conversation.

Most Asian countries had a rich and consistent culture of sensuality and pleasure, but sex was something people _did_ , not talked about, especially in the company of mere acquaintances. And certainly not in, well, details, which was apparently where Duo was going. Wufei didn't want to hear any details about what Duo wanted Heero to do to him. Why was the infernal fool going on and on about such things?

Unless...Wufei glanced sideways and thought he caught the slightest hint of blue eyes twitching away...Unless Maxwell was doing all this to tease him...? No, even the braided pilot could not be that-that-...Wufei knew that Maxwell joked and teased his Sweeper friends but surely he wouldn't consider the Chinese pilot to be a-...Must just be the boredom getting to him. And the frustration.

It _was_ boring and frustrating, watching the same hangar day in and day out, noting guard patrols, new faces and arriving shipments. Wufei would have loved a challenging and cultured conversation to help pass the time. Might as well wish to find the wisdom of Lao Tzu in a bubblegum wrapper.

Not that he couldn't _learn_ a lot from Maxwell if he was actually willing to listen and encourage him. Wufei found himself grinding the binoculars again. He hated to admit it but that was probably part of his irritation. The thought curled in the back of his mind where he couldn't reach it and rip it out; when compared to Maxwell's knowledge and relaxed sensuality, Wufei felt completely repressed and inexperienced. These were not feelings the hardened warrior was used to coping with. Sometimes he found it hard to believe that Heero would really want to continue the arrangement with him, when Maxwell was apparently willing to-...But Duo would never be able to have any kind of relationship - even a working relationship - without investing feelings into it, and that would be disastrous. Wufei clung to that. Despite all Duo said about pure sexual relief, he seemed to be always ready to give his entire heart as well as his body to the people he liked.

Concentrating on the base, Wufei's mind lingered on that puzzle. Duo's experience was troubling for one so young. If he was to be believed - and apparently he never lied - he'd already had one lover and a couple of 'flings', whatever he meant by that; Wufei had managed to interrupt him before he went into too many details. It all left Wufei feeling a bit...Wufei didn't consider himself to be a late bloomer, to be a virgin at sixteen. He'd not been expected to be Meiran's husband in anything but name until they were both eighteen, which was appropriate. More chillingly, Duo had grown up an 'L2 streetrat', as he called it, and his cheerful stories - always cheerful somehow - from his so-called childhood had featured a frightening cast of hookers, pimps, drug-runners and muggers, some of whom had been Duo's friends. Duo himself had apparently been a thief and a fence, and quite good at it, and he'd navigated that world as if it were his home rather than the sordid tapestry of human misery it was. The fact that Duo could still gladly fall in love with someone he slept with puzzled Wufei. It sounded like Duo should have seen enough evidence in his life to prove that sex and love did not necessarily go hand in hand. Wufei couldn't help wonder if this was a sign of great weakness of the mind, or of even greater strength of the heart and soul. The L2 pilot was nothing if not resilient...

Yes, like a weed, Wufei thought grimly as he realized Duo had been rambling away again in the background, despite Wufei's menacing words. Wufei had started to keep a mental score; his last threat came in at something like a nine out of ten since it got Duo to shut up for almost five minutes without any physical violence. In that category, only Yuy's glares could compete.

Finally!

"Maxwell, shipment incoming."

"About fucking time!"

Duo switched on the monitors. They had hacked into the camera feed on the hangar, but both pilots knew how easy it was to electronically lie with those images, so they preferred to rely on direct visuals as well.

"Okay, got it. Recording. Check." Duo's voice still held a hint of joviality, but was serious. "Ah there you go, you beauties..." A darker current hovered in the mocking tones as a mobile doll was briefly visible through a loose tarp; the voice of Shinigami sighting its prey.

Wufei continued watching through the binoculars, noting guards, details of the shipment, size-

"Get packed, Wufei, we're leaving."

The L5 pilot glanced up in surprise, to see Duo pulling on his flak jacket and throwing his things into his duffel bag, looking grim. "What?!"

"Get moving. They're on to us."

"How can you -"

"Quatre put me in charge of this," Duo said, voice like steel. "I'm pulling out in three minutes and switching on the tremblers in the attic. You better be gone before I hit that button."

Wufei felt like arguing, but Duo was right; this was his mission. He quickly gathered his few things and exited the attic. Duo leaned in at the door and hit the remote. Under the floorboards, the vibration-sensitive anti-personnel mines activated and promised a nasty surprise to anybody who tried to follow their trail. They left quickly and in silence.

The base they were watching had been built on the ruins of a small town near Trieste, which had been abandoned and shelled during the first wars of the Alliance, when Europe had been swept with confrontations meant to reunite the Earth sphere under one flag, and prevent all future wars. The corpses of houses around them was a silent testimony to the price people had paid for that ideal, which had turned out to be a lie anyway.

Duo was taking point, ghosting in complete and utter silence along their previously scouted escape route. There was no sign of anyone else in the ruins, but Wufei's senses were starting to tingle. He was ready to bet that Maxwell had been right. If he was, the jaws of a trap were closing around them.

They froze, the silence rippling and breaking under the clicks of safeties being disengaged and guns lifted.

"Halt!"

Four of them. No, five, an officer was coming out of a ruined doorway, Luger pointing at Duo's head. The other men, submachine guns at the ready, came out from behind the low wall that had hid them. Which was stupid. But they were holding their distance, so it wouldn't be easy to capitalize on that mistake. One of the men started talking into his communicator.

"Repeat, we have the terrorists, north quadrant, section eight. Request-"

"Turn around and put your hands on your heads!" the officer barked, gun still trained on Duo. A bead of sweat trickled down his face from the band of his beret.

Wufei hesitated, but Duo dropped his bag and turned around immediately, taking several steps to do so. It looked like he was being very slow and cautious, to avoid getting shot. But in fact he was placing himself between Wufei and the officer and one of the submachine guns. Wufei slowly lifted his hands and put them behind his head, frowning, puzzled, into violet-blue eyes.

"I said turn around!" the officer shouted at him.

Duo slowly blinked his eyes, holding them closed for a second. Wufei quickly shut his own as he saw Duo's hands tense, ready to plunge into his collar and braid. Wufei threw down his bag, turning abruptly, hoping the movement would distract the officer-

"Hey!"

There was a flash of light and a sound - more a raw wall of explosive force - that made dust and rocks leap and dance in comparative silence. Pieces of shrapnel were unheard streaks of rippling air pressure near his body. Wufei twisted and barely caught Duo falling at his feet, propelled forward by his own grenade.

"Ma de dan!" Wufei swore - the officer and one man were down, the three others staggered back, blinded by the flash bomb Duo had also tossed at their feet. One of them turned a stream of bullets haphazardly in their direction. Wufei's gun whipped out and he fired three times, letting Duo fall to the ground. The braided pilot was struggling to his feet by the time the last bullet had found its target.

"This is where I'm glad I put on my kevlar!" Duo gasped, face white with shock and pain.

"Injury?"

"Legs."

"Damn." Wufei grabbed Duo, hauled him up into a fireman's carry and ran to the ruined shopping mall where they'd hidden one of their means of escape, probably their best bet right now. If Duo could hold on to him.

"It was Moustachio." Duo's voice was a weak thread in his ears, as Wufei cautiously leaned forward on the motorbike's handle, trying to see the jaws of the trap that were undoubtedly closing around them. "He always slopes off for a smoke when he's sent to watch the west side of the hangar." A vision of the dark-skinned Oz soldier with the luxurious mustache above the inevitable glowing cigarette flashed through Wufei's mind. "And Sergeant Fatso always flirts with Big Tits the truck driver, and she always ignores him but swings her hips, and-"

The rest was drowned out as Wufei gunned the motor and wrenched them around. They were half out of the ruins, but he could hear the whine of mobile suits in the distance. Both their Gundams were miles away, on a sweeper ship off the coast. It was going to take a miracle to get them out of this.

"- and none of them was behaving like they normally do, you know? Shit, it was staring at me in the face, if only I'd been quicker on the uptake, realized someone was watching them all-"

Then they'd have caught us a few seconds sooner, probably wouldn't have changed much, Wufei thought. The motorcycle roared through the dusty streets, bouncing over broken pavement. Duo hissed and his arms convulsed around Wufei's ribs each time but he didn't complain. There'd been some blood from the wounds on the back of his legs, Wufei's white pants and skin were stained with it, but he didn't think his ally was bleeding out. Cut by shrapnel, but not fatally. At least it was to be hoped. He didn't feel like wasting his time hauling a corpse out of OZ's trap.

The bike growled and the tires tore at loose dirt as Wufei drove it up the slope of a forested area on the outskirts of the town center. Trees were streaks of vicious movement trying to pull them off the bike, trip them with roots, cudgel them with branches. Wufei felt Duo's head dig into his shoulder blades as he hung on for dear life. At least the MS would have a hard time following them through the woods. But they were still in the town, this little forested park area wouldn't last and then they'd be driving through the nearly obliterated suburbs. Damn it, how-

Wufei swerved and stopped the bike so suddenly his foot and the tires shoved up little mounds of loose loam from the forest floor and Duo nearly fell off.

"What-" The L2 pilot hastily put a foot down to keep his balance and looked around wildly.

"I can't move like I need to with you on the back, Maxwell," Wufei said with his usual snap. "Get off, hide here. If you're lucky they'll overlook you and you can sneak through their lines later."

Duo stared wide-eyed at the small storm-drain peeking out from beneath a concrete apron that had once hosted the park's café. Chances were it ran into the sewer at some point, which, if they weren't destroyed, would give Duo another escape route. If not, he could hide here for awhile.

"But- but you-"

"Off!" Wufei jerked the bike and Duo staggered, hissing as he took a few painful steps away to avoid falling, then sinking to his bloodied knees.

"Wufei, wait, we can both-"

"The way to the sewer is most likely blocked by debris," Wufei said, words short and practical, knowing what Duo was about to propose. "And if they don't spot somebody pretty soon they'll break out the heat detectors. I'm fully fit and able to get out of here by myself if I'm not dragging your useless carcass around, Max-"

"You idiot! I'm not hiding here and letting you be my decoy!"

"You can do what you like, Maxwell, if they catch you I'll tell Howard to use Deathscythe for spare parts," Wufei sneered and gunned the bike forward as Duo staggered to his feet and made to rush him. He was out of the small clearing in a second, useless L2 swearwords following him. He headed along the road through the park, knowing it would lead him quickly out of the cover of the trees. He wasn't going to be Maxwell's decoy, but at this point one or two more MS behind him weren't going to make much of a difference; might as well make sure the hounds caught a good sight of their prey. More of a challenge like that anyway.

Soldiers! Wufei didn't slow the bike, so his shots were slightly off, but the three men still fell before they had time to level their rifles or reach for their comms. The shots would be heard, but they wouldn't know which direction he'd taken. He swerved into a side-road away from the park, crossed two major avenues, and ducked instinctively down against the handlebars as he heard the ratchet of an MS machine gun behind him. He jerked the bike down a small side-alley with barely a glance at the suit -Leo, standard issue- that was aiming at him.

He left the Leo behind him, but he didn't need to hear the slight hum in the air to know that the hounds were close on his heels. Aries. Three of them, from the sound of it. Italian towns were full of little winding side-alleys and stairs and gray and sand-colored walls between tall buildings, he was hidden from sight for now, but he would soon be in the suburbs where several direct hits had reduced the charming little town to wave upon wave of unrecognizable stone, steel and rubble. No more cover. If only he had some kind of weapon, one that could at least dent an Aries!

The bike's wheels screamed as he threw himself sideways in a vicious stop and slid to a halt less than a meter from a crater that had obliterated the houses forming the winding alleys he had used for his cover. Before him, only dust, rock and ruin, baking under the Italian late-morning sun. And almost every point of the horizon was pinned down by advancing suits. Only a few three-suit units of mobile dolls - small mercy. Mostly Leos, a few Taurus with heavy-duty laser canons. Laughable overkill for one lone teenager on a bike. They'd been expecting Gundams apparently.

The warrior already had a plan. He'd already left the ground troops behind. If the three Aries behind him were the only aerial reconnaissance they had, then all he had to do was -...

The bike dodged and bounced over ruins, as he hurled himself through the chaos of decade-old destruction. Every time he crested a hill of rubble he could see the Leos gang up around him, still at a distance but hemming him in slowly. The hum of the Aries behind him was getting louder. He banked the bike down a hill, gunned it till the motor howled, made a savage turn under the cover of an old bridge's remaining arch, and hurled the bike back up the incline of the steep hill behind him.

The Aries had accelerated as they lost sight of him, and were exactly where they were supposed to be, just flying past the crest of the hill.

For an instant Wufei and the bike were suspended in warm air and sunshine as tires left the grit beneath them. The sensation was so breathtaking, it was an effort to tear himself away from the doomed bike and throw himself to the ground below, full of edged debris and the promise of pain.

He rolled, chin tucked, arms protecting his head, trying to minimize the damage - a blindfold of darkness and painful stars suddenly snatched away the Italian sun and madly tossing vision of blue sky and grey ruins. He realized he'd come to a stop and instinctively raised his hand to his head where a tender lump on his temple, just above his ear, was starting to burn. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. But it was smoke obscuring it.

Well at least I took a few of them down with me, he thought, suddenly tired. The bike had impacted with one of the Aries. The damage was minor, but the blow had momentarily stopped it in its tracks and the one following close behind it had rammed into it and taken them both down. Fools, staying in tight formation to hunt down one unarmed teenager on a bike; how weak and pathetic. Smoke billowed. One was still whirring on the ground, barely moving, the other was burning. The third...

Wufei cursed and hauled himself up. The third had unfortunately been further back and had managed to swerve out of the way. It was some ways away from him, but the Aries had a clear shot. Why-...Wufei hesitated between fight, flight or surrender, wondering why the pilot of the MS wasn't reacting to his presence.

The slight hiss behind him was all the warning he got, but then Gundam pilots weren't known for their slow reflexes. He was on his stomach with his arms covering his bruised head before his mind had fully time to remember where he'd head that small noise before, like an indrawn breath before a scream that could shatter creation.

Damn, when did _he_ get here? The thought was buried in an avalanche of heat and light as the buster rifle beam scythed the air fifty meters away, disintegrated the remaining Aries and picked off the three Leos who'd been approaching some distance behind it.

Wufei listened to the hiss of shots and the ping of super-heated metal rapidly cooling, and decided that a Gundam pilot without his Gundam was not meant to be lingering in the middle of a MS fight. He got to his feet and looked around for cover without much hope. It wouldn't take much of a misplaced shot to destroy an unprotected human body.

Wing's pilot had probably thought the same, as a hiss of hydraulics and the roar of a hydrogen generator made Wufei duck down again. Wing nearly flattened him with the explosive force of his leap towards the small knot of Leos that were firing at it. Most of their shots impacted with little damage on the Gundanium armor. Wing wasn't in much danger from five Leos - make that three - swish of thermal sword - no, one - okay, those weren't a problem anymore. But others were approaching rapidly and in better order now that they realized they had a real fight on their hands instead of the leisurely chase of an unarmed victim. The unarmed victim in question gritted his teeth as he watched a platoon of Leos gather and fired a coordinated attack on Wing's solid plating. Even a Gundam couldn't take that much of a beating for long.

Wing brought its shield around almost lazily and took the shots on the hardened surface. It indulged the Leos with a few more shots, then started running towards them, still in the shelter of its shield. Another platoon had drawn near and started firing at Wing from the side, intent on taking it in a pincher movement against which it couldn't protect itself. Wing hurled itself diagonally, still nearing its original target while dodging the new danger as if it the shells were crawling through the air at snail's pace and it had all the time in the world to see them coming. The Leos adjusted their aim, but Wing was already elsewhere, closer yet to the first platoon, beam sword swinging up.

Wufei sat down on a handy rock behind a low wall that would protect him from shrapnel. Not much of a refuge, but at this point there was nothing in the ruins that would shield him from a direct hit if a random shot came his way. He put his elbows on the rough surface of the wall, leaned his aching head in his hands, and watched the show.

Wing was among the first platoon, sword ripping down the first MS in line in a shower of sparks. Before it could even fall to its knees the sword whipped out and impaled a second suit, then Wing spun and brought the weapon crashing down in a diagonal cut into a third. A fourth suit exploded under the panicked shots from someone in the second platoon. Most had stopped firing since they couldn't hit the big but elusive figure without catching their comrades in the crossfire. Wing had a free hand to play as it wanted. Wufei noted a third platoon approach to their left however. Damn, if only he had Nataku!

Shots from the last remaining Leo - Wufei blinked, stunned, when had the others gone down?!- impacted on Heero's shield, then the sword swept up, severing the legs and gun arm of the metal opponent. Wing was already leaping towards the second platoon of MS before the Leo could topple to the ground. The Gundam leapt up - and up - Wufei slipped quickly behind the stone wall, knowing what was coming. The buster rifle swung out from under the shield and two massive shots ripped the air apart, hitting in the middle of each of the Leo's formations. The ground trembled beneath Wufei's feet, and a wash of hot ionized air gusted around the wall and blew his hair, loose from the earlier impact with the ground, away from his face, even at that distance. He hadn't seen how many MS had been disintegrated by the flash of heat and light. He could see the result though. The careful formations were in tatters as Leos and the occasional Taurus mobile doll scattered away from the deadly shots, bumped into each other, or turned ragged uncoordinated attacks at the figure once more crashing to earth. The buster rifle fell to the ground with a clang. Out of energy, but it had done its job. The sword hissed through the air as Wing started a final deadly dance with the disorganized troops.

Wufei sat down again, rubbing a bruised hip absently, eyes on the sight. Wing dodged a shaky swing of a short thermal sword and cut its owner in two. Two Taurus leapt forward behind Wing - Wufei felt his mouth go dry - leveling their more deadly laser canons at its back. Graceful mechanical wings unfurled swiftly from the Gundam's back a fraction before the shots impacted and all the lethal beams could intersect was the jet wash from Heero's surge upwards, and a Leo that had knelt to take aim with a missile launcher. Wing vaulted gracefully on the upsurge of its engine and landed right behind the dolls, sword swinging down in harmony with its movements. Slash, sparks, two explosions behind Wing already moving on to its next victim.

Wufei watched Heero hunt down the suits like a pack of frightened rats. It was just too...perfect. The deadly dance was almost graceful. The Leos seeming to stand still while Wing pounced and spun and ripped them apart. A strange wash of emotion tore at him. Envy was not on the roll call. It was not his nature to want something he couldn't reach just because someone else had it. He wanted to do his best, _his_ best, so that Nataku would be proud of him. And seeing this, this brought out his best, even as it cut him down. Because it was his nature to never give up even when what he was reaching for was forever just out of reach. It just made him try harder. It was his own perfection, illogically flawed, but at least it was his own.

He felt proud too. This implacable engine of destruction was his ally - and he was happier than ever that Heero was on his side. Even if he couldn't quite match him, Wufei was very near. One step behind him, and always reaching for more. No wonder OZ feared them. The perfection they were fighting for was a greater challenge than a bunch of Leos could ever be. OZ, the gigantic murderous war-machine, might be the ultimate enemy, but its individual soldiers were mere targets, chances to practice and to perfect. Watching Heero's wings crash out and rip him through the air, back from a deadly volley and then forwards again towards his next victim, Wufei realized why he didn't feel the slight resentment he normally felt towards Heero. It had never been resentment at the other's achievement anyway; it was the way Heero never looked back to see how closely Wufei followed him. But now he realized...they weren't made to look back, were they. Only forward. He would always see Heero in front of him - challenging Wufei ever onwards - just as Heero would never see him just behind his back. That was the way it was, and it was perfect in its own way too.

Heero didn't pursue the Leos that fled the scene, as long as they dropped their weapons or didn't turn to fire. Soon the mecha was alone in a ring of destruction, smoke streaming past it, blotting out the sun. Wing paused to pick up the buster rifle and made its way back to the carcasses of the Aries that had been the first to fall, and to Wufei, who stood up and began to run towards the advancing giant.

Wing leaned forward and started to sink to one knee, but Wufei made large Stop signs with his arms then mouthed -knowing Heero would have a monitor trained on him - "I left Maxwell back in town, he needs extraction now."

Heero extended a hand towards Wufei and the L5 pilot leapt on to the palm and grabbed at a metal finger for balance.

"He's in a park near the edge of town center," he shouted, hoping Heero still had him on monitor. Apparently he had, because the mecha started moving, first at a run then in a graceful swoop of its wings over buildings, heading towards a spot of green in the gray, gold and pink colors of the ruined town. Wufei hung on grimly - the mecha's flight wasn't as smooth as it looked when you were riding in its palm - hoping they wouldn't run into the reinforcements that were certainly on their way, probably wave upon wave of mobile dolls from the big military base in Corsica. They had to get out of there soon.

He directed Heero by sign to the open area of concrete among the trees, and was relieved to see Duo crawl out of the storm drain from a distance, alive, conscious and apparently still able to recognize the hum of a Gundam's motor. He leapt down from the hand and ran over to grab the limping pilot. Duo was saying about three different things at once. Apparently he was glad and amazed to see Heero, pissed off at Wufei for being such a stupid heroic asshole, and extremely unhappy about the state of storm-drains in Italy. Wufei hauled him over his shoulder with a certain satisfaction at the yelp that interrupted the grumbling and ran towards the extending zipcord.

He slumped against the closing hatch. Not a protected position in case of further fighting but he let Duo take the slightly safer spot near the command chair, in case the L2 pilot passed out. He gave Heero a minute nod of acknowledgment and thanks. Heero returned the nod with the slightest eye contact, his minimalist equivalent of ‘you’re welcome’, then ordered Duo to stop bleeding on his floor in lieu of greeting and took off.

They were all silent until Wing had gotten clear and turned into jet mode, heading towards a designated safe-house. Wufei kept an eye on their pilot. When Heero's body language gave him permission, he straightened and asked: "How did you know?"

Heero glanced at him, relaxing slightly in the chair, though keeping most of his attention on the monitors. "They were trying to get clever. Apparently someone found your tracer in one of the containers, Maxwell."

"What?!" Duo's eyes were wide and horrified with the feeling of failure. Even Heero had to relent in the face of the self-directed anger.

"Not your error. The tracer malfunctioned and started sending out a continuous signal instead of the intermittent one. They found it, and actually repaired it, they were hoping-"

"To set a trap?" Duo's face paled. "Oh god, Quatre? Trowa?"

"Fortunately it was Winner's objective. He guessed there was something wrong before the trap could close entirely. He got out with minor damage."

"What's minor in your book?!" Duo snapped, eyes wide in pain.

"No injuries, the damage was to Sandrock," Heero grunted.

Duo slumped back against the console, a look of relief on his face, partly mollifying the guilt.

"Winner contacted Barton and me. It was probable you two might need extraction once Winner had sprung the trap. I was finishing my mission in Algeria, I was closest. I'm surprised you weren't in custody already."

"I think they were waiting for Maxwell to sneak in and get him then." Wufei sighed. "They'd cordoned off the ruins, but weren't looking for us actively. They thought we might have our Gundams in town."

"I wish we had," Duo muttered and Wufei more than agreed. To have been hunted through the ruins like a rat chased by a pack of dogs, only to get rescued by Heero at the last minute, left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Wufei, bracing against the wall to counter Wing's occasional sharp turns, kept an eye on the monitors while he let his mind calm and pool in concentration. They were heading towards the coast, but he didn't think they would go to the sweeper ship immediately, Heero would want to recharge his rifle and lay low for a day or two. He wasn't surprised when Wing set down then practically skulked through the cheerful afternoon sun, walking among olive groves and cork plantations before stooping low to kneel in a tall abandoned barn.

"Summer home of one of Winner's connections," Heero said abruptly, powering down and setting proximity alarms. Wufei stood stiffly, bruised muscles starting to present the tab of the morning's strenuous activities.

Heero picked up Duo with ease, lean muscles rippling. The L2 pilot let out howls all the way to the house, it sounded like three cats in a bag. Wufei rolled his eyes. The braided fool's resistance to pain was considerable under torture. Too bad he didn't have the same restraint with his allies as with Oz interrogators. He was dumped unceremoniously into Wufei's arms as Heero left them to set the perimeter and scout around. Wufei hauled Duo up the stairs and opened doors at random. The first room was small with a double bed, the second door was a study, the third one was the master bedroom, and it was in the back of the house where a light - and screams- would have less chance of attracting anybody who might be passing by the out-of-the-way road leading to the residence. Wufei tugged the dust-sheet off of the big bed and let Duo down on it - gently, as the pilot was starting to get very pale and, even more worryingly, silent. Heero had stuffed the medical kit into Duo's right hand before leaving them. Wufei had Maxwell out of his jacket and an IV inserted by the time Wing's pilot re-appeared, obviously satisfied with security.

Heero turned Duo over and slipped out the knife from his steel-capped boot to slit Duo's clothes open along the back. He and Wufei assessed the damage. Nothing critical, the bleeding was already slowing, but several holes didn't have exit wounds, and sutures would be needed once the shrapnel was extracted. Heero took a flashlight from the medical kit. Wufei leaned forward to take it from him, but Heero's other hand caught his chin in a tight grip. Before the L5 pilot could say anything the flashlight was glaring into his eyes, first one then the other, as Heero inspected his pupils, then pressed a hand against the swelling above his ear, feeling for the creak of bone. He absently rubbed his thumb and fingers to clear away the clotted blood that stained them as he glanced over Wufei's body.

"Are you injured anywhere else?" Heero frisked him quickly and clinically. And painfully. Wufei grimaced. The worst bruises from his capture three weeks back had only just disappeared, now he had a brand new set.

"Nothing noteworthy," he grunted, taking the flashlight from Heero and turning it on Duo's back.

Duo's eyes were wide and unfocused with the pain-killer Wufei had injected into the IV line. He barely twitched as Heero fished out the shrapnel from the wounds. Duo's vest had protected him from injury to his vital organs, but the back of his legs, arms and buttocks had taken several hits. Fortunately all the metal had missed the arteries they could have intersected, or Duo would have been dead in minutes. As it was the blood loss was still considerable, and the pain had to be as well.

"So, H'ro," Duo finally muttered, sense bubbling up from the incoherent mumblings they'd been ignoring. "M'I gonna have any scars back there?"

"Yes. But most of the cuts are shallow. You were lucky." Heero cut a stitch.

"Did I get any on my ass?"

"None too deep."

"Looks fine?"

"Yes."

"Oh...so you think my ass looks _fine_ ," Duo mumbled through a cheesy leer half-buried in the pillow and managed a suggestive wiggle under Heero's hands. Wufei almost dropped the light. Several emotions clashed in his mind and were gone just as quickly, leaving only embarrassment and confusion. There'd been some horror, and also some admiration at the L2 pilot's resilience, and deep down had been the slightest flicker of alarm at the way Heero's eyes had been caught on the display for a second longer than was normal.

"Chang? Light." Wufei cursed himself soundly as he realized his hands had tensed and the flashlight had shifted away from the last of Duo's injuries. He forced stillness upon his mind and body as the last stitches went into place and Duo started to mumble incoherently again. He seemed to be talking about ferrets.

"Done," Heero grunted. "If we can avoid infection, he'll be mobile in a day or two. Antibiotics in the IV, pain-killer -"

"No seta-steda- no shit, don’ wanna be drugged," Duo mumbled.

Heero just grunted and reached for the bandages. "I don't need you now, Chang. Go rest."

Wufei snorted. He was not tired. He was...he didn't know. He felt like breaking something. "I'll go take a shower," he muttered instead. "Do we have a change of clothes anywhere?"

Heero jerked his head towards a bag near the foot of the bed. "I only brought a few things. It was supposed to be a short mission before I returned to the safe-house." Before the call of alarm had wrenched him away from his mission in Algeria, Wufei remembered, and sent him across the Mediterranean and into four platoons of OZ suits cornering the L5 pilot.

He rooted through the bag. There was a pair of sweatpants and boxers, a spare holster and shoe-laces, as well as the laptop. And 'the kit', which they all had with them: all-purpose cleaner, small towel, toothbrush, comb, toilet paper, thread and needle, emergency blanket and candles, and some energy bars. Wufei took the sweatpants with a nod of permission from Heero and brought the kit with him to the bathroom. He stripped out of what was left of his clothes - the thread and needle would come in handy tomorrow - and stepped into the shower. The water was tepid and smelled of pipes. It was getting cooler. Hopefully Heero had turned on the heater while sweeping the house and grounds.

The cleaner was harsh against his skin, and his hair tangled and caught in his fingers. The water hammered on his shoulders, warming again. It tried to relax him without much success. He growled in silence as the water cascaded onto his face, remembering the MS closing about him, tracking him and cornering him like dogs hounding a deer at bay. At least he'd managed to take some down. Then Yuy-

His mind burned with the memory of that deadly grace. Something else burned as well. Dammit! The anger flared and turned on himself. Then died. Why was he worried about this? Even Heero admitted the power that adrenaline, danger and fighting had over their young bodies. It was just something you accepted, if you were wise; there were too many other things to fight against. You dealt with it and moved on. And that reminded him of the last time he'd 'dealt with it'.

In the alley. After the mission where they'd had to dress up and act like prostitutes. Not that they'd had any interest in each other when they were both practically naked. But afterwards - Heero walking down those stairs, gun in each hand... After the slaughter at the exit, with blood under his fingernails and his stolen clothes stained with sweat. Up against the wall. Wufei blushed -and stiffened- at the memory of that crash of dark pleasure blowing through his mind and body like the storms of war. It had been...breathtaking, more than anything they'd done before. The recollection ripped through him, burned in the dead part of his soul, buffeted him like battle winds.

Wufei also remembered that the arrangement had changed since that time after his escape. They weren't going to do it after their sparring any more. So how exactly were they going to...? What would it be like if it was mutual again? That intense again? What would it be like to-... to touch that perfection, to get even closer to it. Shudo. The ways of the samurai. Stay pure, dedicated to excellence, avoid distractions. Distractions like more experienced but more emotional people. Shudo. The more experienced warrior had the right-

Wufei shook his head vigorously, sending droplets of water splattering against the tiles and the curtain. What was he thinking? He must be concussed. But in his head, Heero burned a line of fire among enemies who could be standing still for all they could do against that force of nature...

"Chang?" Heero rapped on the door, interrupting Wufei in his thoughts as well as the first tentative motions of his hand to relieve the pressure.

"What?" he said, a bit too quickly.

"Status?" Heero meant clinically. He never took more than two minutes in a shower. Wufei grunted something and quickly made sure the cleaner was off his skin and shut off the water. They'd have to set up guard duty on the security monitors, and Heero might want to shower too. Piloting a Gundam, especially that way, was excruciatingly hard for even their tough, young bodies. Wufei dried himself with the cleanest part of his clothes, leaving the towel for Heero. He slipped on the sweatpants, rinsed his mouth with the cleaner, gathered his things and unlocked the door.

Heero glanced up from where he was leaning against the opposite wall. "Apologies," Wufei muttered in his direction as he headed towards the second bedroom. "You can have-"

An arm slammed into the wall a few inches in front of him, and he bumped into the other as he instinctively jerked back. He turned and stared into two pits lined with hard cobalt.

"Are you tired?" Heero asked, and it was purely form. His stance indicated that he knew the answer, had probably read it from Wufei's body before he'd even left to take his shower.

"No," Wufei said, caught in the stare. Heero's eyes dropped to the wet hair brushing Wufei's shoulders, the lean chest, the hips from which the loose sweatpants hung.

Wufei's eyes darted to the main bedroom's door in an unasked question.

"Unconscious. Midazolam in the IV," Heero said, in a low voice.

"He didn't want a sedative."

Heero snorted. "I know what Maxwell is like under opiates. I don't give him a choice anymore."

The real question hung between them, eyes catching every shift in stance, any sign of resistance or agreement, a whole dialog in the language of muscle and bone. Heero wanted to know if he still had to fight for it, still had to force Wufei to comply with Wufei's own wants. Wufei's mind shivered in uncertainty but his body answered for him.


	7. Battlelust part II

Wufei barely had time to nod. A hard hand had grabbed his and dragged him off towards the second bedroom. It was small and dark, closed shutters allowing only a sliver of daylight through. Heero tore the cover keeping dust off the bed and threw it over the curtain rail to further block out any light that could come from the room, although who would see it out in the countryside was anybody's guess. But caution was second nature to all of them. The cover underneath the sheet was a knitted white comforter that looked like something an Italian grandmother had made. It caught the last shreds of light in the room in a cool shade of pearl.

Wufei, approaching the bed slowly, found himself gripped by the waist and lowered onto the comforter - not quite thrown - and a hard mouth covered his. A flicker of wonder. Why did Heero bother doing that? It wasn't tender and couldn't even remotely be considered foreplay. Then the storm of pent-up adrenaline, frustration and need caught Wufei and blew most of his mind away.

He was crushing Heero's lips against his own, arms around the strong neck, rumpling the brown hair, their bodies rubbing roughly together, the bed shivering and creaking beneath them. He found himself panting as Heero tore himself away and leaned over to unlace his boots; the steel caps could leave nasty bruises as Wufei knew only too well. Heero had sparred bare-foot after their first time in the abandoned shed. Which was about as considerate a partner as he got. A slit of light shining beneath the door to the hallway cut out Heero's body in silhouette. The steel hands were clumsy with tension and lust. Wufei felt something clench in his chest. This was the only time the perfect soldier allowed his control to slip, even so minutely. Wufei had somehow never considered how much trust this implied. Well not that much, but for Heero, it was considerable. The parameters of their arrangement were more than just pure relief of a physical need; it was a chance for contact with another person. Wufei hardened at the tactile memory of Heero arching back against his chest. And it was the mutual understanding that this would not interfere with their performance, would not get enmeshed with sentimentality. This was why Heero chose him, and not the more experienced, tempting Duo. Even though, for Heero, there had to be a lot missing in comparison.

They could all be dead tomorrow, and would certainly be before the year was out. Why was he limiting their arrangement to these brief, rough touches?

Because his pride wouldn't allow him to slip from the role of the hardened assured warrior into new territory in which he would be an unsure, vulnerable sixteen year old with no idea what he was doing. The realization was bitter; that was hardly a good reason. The honesty and trust Heero invested in the arrangement deserved better. Heero deserved better.

Heero's hands were on him again, rough, trying to pitch him onto his back and get on top of him. Wufei squirmed out of the hold and slipped his hands to the bottom of the tank top to pull it up. Heero backed off an inch and rapidly tore it off, then started as Wufei's hands dropped to the spandex shorts and pulled on those as well. Heero's hands were slower as they took over there and slipped the shorts off too. Eyes widened in the gloom as Wufei tugged the sweatpants off. Wufei knelt on the bed and slipped between the hands that reached for him, more slowly as Heero tried to understand this new turn of events. Wufei turned in the grasp, moving back until he could feel Heero's body a few inches from his.

"Let's do this," he said sharply.

He could hear the bedsprings squeak as Heero, still sitting on the side of the bed, leaned forward to rub his chest against Wufei's back, arms moving around his shoulders. Experienced hands dropped down to his erection as skin made contact with skin.

Wufei shouldered the arms away and his hand reached back to tug at Heero's side, leaning his ass back against the hard abs at the same time. "Come on, Yuy."

The hands hovered an inch from his body. "What-...?"

Wufei simply tugged again, indicating that Heero should get on the bed behind him.

The hands touched his skin again, to still his movements more than a caress. Though one of them happened to land on his left nipple which was a disturbing sensation.

Heero leaned forward. His breath tousled the drying raven strands as he said: "I thought we agreed-"

"Changed my mind. Hurry up," Wufei snapped.

There was a brief pause as Wufei's hair fluttered under a silent exhalation.

"'Hurry up'?" The voice was tinged with a hint of dry amusement. Wufei grunted.

Heero's left hand dropped and curved around Wufei's ribs to linger against his left hip. Since the arrangement and their missions together, they'd needed less and less verbal communication, especially when what needed to be said was at a level that words couldn't reach. The touch was a question; are you sure?

Wufei nodded firmly, while forcing his body to relax under the touch. The hand stayed there for a few more seconds, then Heero moved off the bed. Wufei stared over his shoulder in confusion. His abrupt, bewildered move was vocalized by a creak of springs and the swish of his hair on his shoulders. Heero turned back from the door.

"Getting something in the next room. I'll be right back."

Wufei turned again to stare blankly at the wall behind the head of the bed. A flash of cream wallpaper with little bunches of almond flowers and leaves and a small painting had been briefly illuminated as the door opened and closed behind him. Get what? What could they need-...condoms? Well, it must be painfully obvious to Heero that he wasn't going to pick up any sexually transmitted diseases from Wufei, but Yuy had had a previous partner. But condoms had definitely not been part of the kit. Anyway, considering their life expectancy and their boosted resistance to most infections, that was hardly a concern. And it's not like I can get pregnant; the thought flashed through his mind, making a small part of him cringe, the part that still thought pride and honor could be linked to something as trivial as an image of masculinity. Pride and honor came only from his actions, the way he lived his life, fought, and would eventually die. The dead he was sacrificing himself for didn't care what he did with his body, as long as he spilled his blood for them. The only one who cared was Wufei. And he-

The door opened and closed behind him, the sliver of light finding him still in the same position, the almond sprigs winking in and out of existence before his blank gaze. He didn't flinch or move when Heero sat down behind him again. Apparently his body had already made the choice while his mind was still equivocating.

Heero leaned past him, hip brushing hip, and switched on the bedside lamp, to Wufei's slight embarrassment. He had no problems with his body, but considering what they were about to do-... oh to hell with it. His eyes had caught a flash of Heero, naked now as he leaned back, and a rather unexpected desire had made his softening erection twitch. He didn't feel particularly attracted to men, or anybody really, but this was the first time he'd seen Heero entirely naked and, damn, Maxwell had been right. He was perfect. Lean, hard frame, muscles playing beneath golden-toned skin, violent and beautiful. The hip of one long leg barely revealed dark curls and- Then something foreign in the picture made Wufei twist around to get a better and more straightforward look.

"What-" There'd been a small tube in Heero's hand as he leaned forward to switch on the light.

The tube flashed before his eyes as Heero waved it briefly before his turned face. It was blue and white with a screw-on cap.

"Antiseptic cream for burns. I will have to remember to refill the medical kit when we're back with the Sweepers," Heero added with his usual attention to details at the most inappropriate times.

"Burn cream?" Wufei's mind melted into one big question mark.

"For lubricant. Best we can do in the circumstances." There was a small noise as the tube was uncapped and squeezed.

Wufei almost asked 'what' again but his knowledge of mechanics and biology meshed before the question could leave his lips and he figured it out with a slight cringe.

Unfortunately Heero didn't need to hear the question out loud; he could read body language as well as Wufei.

"Are you sure?" Heero's voice was brisk and demanding. Not a considerate question; he wanted to be sure Wufei wasn't going to get weird on him later. This could affect his fighting performance.

"Yes." Wufei's voice was calm and certain. His decision had been made and he wasn't the sort to second guess himself interminably. That sort of thing got a Gundam pilot killed. He didn't stiffen as Heero climbed onto the bed to kneel behind him. Heero's left arm wrapped around him again, slipping from his chest to his abdomen in a move that made his skin tingle. Something brushed down his crack and he tried to relax as it lingered, wet and still a bit cold -the cream, probably- around his entrance.

Wufei stared at the wall, trying to ignore the way his heart was hammering irregularly. The picture above the head of the bed was a small cheap painting of some saint or other in baroque colors. The scholar who'd studied art wavered at the back of his mind; Saint John Damascus? Saint Michael?

He couldn't help a twitch as he felt himself penetrated. It was surprise, he'd expected Heero to move him a bit, he was kneeling on his feet, not very accessible. The thought of 'this doesn't feel like anything much at all' was quickly replaced by confusion as the invader twisted and pushed inside him. That...wasn't Heero's cock.

Wufei hit the embarrassment at his inexperience over the head with a shovel and buried it once and for all. Heero knew he was a virgin, might as well bite the bullet. "What are you doing?" he muttered, grinding out the words reluctantly.

There was silence behind him for a few seconds. Wufei glared at the almond sprigs on the wallpaper, daring them to comment.

"Stretching you. You don't know anything about this." The last wasn't a question.

"No. For some reason I can't conceive of, my teachers never covered this in class," Wufei snapped then bit his lip. He wasn't going to start spouting off-color jokes in his uncertainty, was he? Hell, maybe Maxwell was contagious.

The intrusion -a finger, he gathered- felt...very strange, but it didn't hurt, which was what Wufei had been wondering about somewhat. Damn it. There had been quite a lot of chuckling in the school dorms when one of the older students had smuggled in some of the erotic documents from his Asian study classes. The illustrated texts on homosexual sex had garnered quite a few nervous titters. Wufei rather wished he'd paid more attention instead of sneering and going back to his homework. Of course if someone had told him that two years later he would be participating in such an act between two terrorist missions...he'd have probably decked them.

"Is this part of it?" he growled, embarrassed, this reminded him more of a medical exam or a strip search than sex. But that was a very stupid question. If Yuy was doing it, it had a function. The closest they'd ever come to foreplay was their violent matches and the single massage.

"Yes. This avoids injury to you." Wufei's heart, which was already hammering with excitement, uncertainty and embarrassment, managed to squeeze in an extra beat to allow for sudden apprehension. "And it makes it easier for both of us."

"Oh."

"Fortunately I did some research." Heero's voice in his ear was slightly disapproving. Wufei glared at the almond sprigs and the saint's eyes, full of pathos. Well _excuse me_ if this wasn't part of my mission planning, I hadn't exactly expected to get fucked at the end of it, he thought sourly. Wait a minute... _research_?

"You've never done this?" he croaked.

"No." The gentle movement stopped. "I had the same agreement about penetration with my former partner."

"Oh." He was saying that a lot. It was a stupid little noise that he normally avoided.

"Do you want to stop?"

Wufei glanced around, though he couldn't see anything, bar the uninteresting décor of the rest of the room. Heero was too far behind him. Did he want to stop? If Heero hadn't actually done this before...was he really expecting Wufei to do this? Dry humping and hand jobs should be enough, after all. This was a bit longer and more involved than he'd thought. They wouldn't often have the time or privacy to- After all, it wasn't as if he _wanted_ to-

The memory was almost a physical blow. The feeling of Heero slamming him against that alley wall and grinding into him, and him arching and thrusting back. The way that had felt in the short time it'd lasted. The truth was, he wasn't too sure about this, but he did feel like finding out if it got better than that or not. Or even just to find out what it was like. It seemed a pity to die without _knowing_. Damn maybe the scholar beneath the warrior was still alive and kicking after all.

"I'm not saying I'll do this again, but let's try it," he said sharply. "After all, that's why you did the research, right?" Yes, apparently Heero had been hoping for this, maybe expecting it.

"...Actually..."

The intrusion became a bit more pronounced, the movement inside more complex. He realized after a few seconds that Heero had added another finger. Wufei had time to wonder at that word, 'actually'. It wasn't like Heero to use fillers like that, he normally said what he meant straight out. But what was happening to his body was distracting him.

"Is this necessary?" he muttered, wincing slightly. "Just get on with it."

"Are you afraid of changing your mind?" The voice was slightly mocking again. Wufei's head was turned away, but he knew his body language betrayed the angry, defensive flush.

"Just hurry up," he growled.

"This has to be done correctly." Heero's voice was precise and unemotional in his ear, moving his hair slightly as it rustled against his shoulder, dried by the harsh cleaner. Inside him, the presence of Heero's fingers was becoming more pronounced, and the muscles around them were quivering a bit with tension. Of course, muscles. Warming them up would prevent injury. Wufei put the alien feeling of the intrusion from his mind, along with the slight throbbing stretch and light pain he was beginning to feel, and rose above them, moving away in a light trance. If he relaxed, then that would probably facilitate things. His heart-rate and breathing slowed, his eyes unfocused, finally losing the almond sprigs and sad look from the Saint which were starting to grate on his synapses. He was detached to the fact that Heero was now moving in deeper as he felt less resistance. This would be easy, really, and over soon. All he needed to do-

Wufei slammed against the arm Heero had still wrapped against his abdomen as a strangled gasp escaped him and he jerked away. Heero immediately froze.

" _What-_ "

"Did that hurt?" Heero sounded puzzled.

"Idon'tknow." The words tumbled out, apparently stupid but he couldn't describe the feeling of...shock that had run through him, jolting him out of his slight trance. It had felt a bit like touching a live wire, the same shock, clench of muscles, the same trembling afterwards, but instead of pain it had been...Wufei realized that he was hard again, and what was tingling over his nerves wasn't pain as much as an unfamiliar feeling of pleasure. "N-no, I guess not. What-what did you do? What was that?"

"...This?" Heero was moving inside him again. Wufei wasn't sure he wanted a repeat of the experience.

"No. Are you sure- _oh!_ "

"That." Heero's voice sounded ever so slightly smug.

Wufei blinked rapidly, trying to clear the black splotches from his eyes. He realized he was leaning back against Heero's chest, gasping, and it felt like all his muscles had turned to water. A slight shudder ran through him. His heart was hammering against his chest. Heero's hand had covered it, as if keeping track of his pulse.

"That...I'll let you do the research afterwards." Heero's voice was breathless. If they were doing things 'normally' they'd already be done by now, Wufei thought, trying to get back to the cold intellectual distance he'd previously achieved. Yuy was probably getting a bit impatient. He tried to ask Heero not to do _that_ anymore, and found that the words stuck in his throat. The sensation ran through him again as Heero's fingers probed, not quite as strong this time, more a shiver of shock/pleasure that made his nerves hum. He licked his lips. His erection, which hadn't been very enthusiastic about all of this until now, was aching, and he was panting. A bead of sweat ran down the skin of his chest leaving a trail of shivers on his skin. Heero's hand was still on his heart, and his slight movement as he shifted position caressed the nipple that had hardened under the sensations, making Wufei flinch.

Wufei felt a flash of resentment, as if Heero and his body were ganging up to outmaneuver him. He really wished he'd done the research. Forget old Asian erotica, he could have had this all figured out after ten minutes on the internet. Or five minutes talking to Maxwell, although that wouldn't happen on this side of never. The fingers were still twisting and moving inside him and he forced himself to relax and ride the occasional sparks that resulted from the movements. He found that this attenuated the sensations, leaving only a shimmer of rather disturbing pleasure flicker up and down his skin, making his breath catch in his throat.

Heero's hand left his chest, the sudden coolness prickling the skin over Wufei's heart. From the slight distance of his trance he heard the plastic sound of the tube being squeezed, then the wet crackle of the lubricant being spread. Then the fingers left him with a bit of a shock at the cessation of all feelings there. Two hands, both slightly gummy with the tube's content, pressed his shoulders forward. Wufei tensed internally but didn't hesitate, leaning forward on his hands and knees, trying not to 'see' the mental image that- But Heero continued to push, and pulled his hands away from him gently, his body leaning into his -and something hard and wet bumped into his inner thigh and shivered his calm for an instant. The pressure on his shoulders pressed him down until he was flat against the bed, his right cheek sinking into the fluffy white knitted comforter. He felt Heero's hands linger once more on his hips, feeling for hesitation or rejection from his body. Then his legs were spread gently and the overly soft mattress shifted as Heero lowered himself down.

Wufei distantly made himself relax as he felt Heero's hardness against his entrance. He barely had time to worry about the feeling of resistance, of pressure, and then Heero was moving in him. There was a quick throb that barely flashed in his mind. Then it wasn't so bad. Then it...was. Wufei forced himself to relax and breathe regularly as Heero moved in slowly and the pressure against the muscles grew. The whole set of sensations was...more than the fingers. Bigger but also more solid, and it felt very unnatural. Heero's movements ceased, and he was still for a moment. Wufei blinked away a bit of moisture in his eyes that resulted from the stinging stretch, and focused on the hand that was buried in the comforter a few inches away from his shoulder; large for someone Heero's age, strong, corded with muscle and sinew. Wufei felt a shiver run through his body, and was actually rather glad that he wasn't on his hands and knees, as the sensations and throbbing were making his heart and body twitch and tremble. An American voice in his head chuckled something about being 'nailed to the mattress' but Wufei ignored it with the ease of considerable practice.

It felt even stranger when Heero began to move, to thrust gently, in and out. The muscles protested at the changes in direction as well as the unusual stretch they were being forced to; then subsided. Wufei was still in the remove of his slight meditation, and noted his body's reactions clinically. Under the pain, the strangeness and his detachment, his erection, caught against the white comforter, had subsided again. His body felt heavy and inert. He wasn't feeling too involved in all this, and somehow that disturbed him as much as the sensations. It reminded him of the passive role he'd had at first, the denial. It was as if the acceptance he'd come to, the steps he'd taken when he'd touched Heero back in the mining shack three weeks ago, the decision he'd come to now, were turned back and made moot. It left him feeling a bit empty; emotionally drained at any rate, because physically- he jerked his mind away from that train of thought.

Heero leaned further against his back and the movements became more pronounced. The bedsprings started to squeak in time to the movement, a slightly distasteful accompaniment. The feeling of stretching discomfort rose again, peaked and then faded a bit. Wufei realized with some mental discomposure that he could feel Heero's hips against his ass during the thrusts now. He was trying not to get a mental image of them together, which was probably a bit odd, maybe even weak, but well... it wasn't as if he actually had to like this all that much. He-

He flinched as Heero did that thing again inside, the one that made his entire skin and gut shiver and crackle like a lightning strike. He tried to ignore it, but he floundered short of his previous detachment, the sensations and reality of the situation overwhelming him finally. He bit back a harried groan...

Finally he clung to something else to center himself; the thrusts ending in a sparkle of pleasure, filling him in a way that was both alien, disturbing and strangely satisfying; the feel of Heero's skin moving against his own, a hard chest rubbing up and down his spine; the sight of the hand starting to grip the comforter, white-knuckled, fingers tangling in the knitted mesh, fibers clinging together with the traces of lube; the familiar smell of the other pilot tickling his nose behind the scent of wool and dust; the sound of Heero breathing against his shoulder and his hair. A tingle ran through him. That sound...Heero's breath quickening and catching and the faint hint of a moan behind it was making him shiver, he remembered the eroticism of the man rubbing against his chest. Heero was moving more easily in him now, and that little kick inside was making him shudder and his erection twitch against the comforter.

With something between defeat and relief he let go, surrendered to the sensations that were piling up too fast for his harried, confused analysis, and he felt them overwhelm him in a warm buffet of feelings that was very different from the usual bitter stormwinds that tore at him. He thought -

\- hn, that- _that_ again-

he thought that maybe -

Heero's breath rasped and a real groan escaped the lips an inch from the skin of his shoulders making Wufei's heart leap with some indefinable satisfaction.

\- maybe this-... - this wasn't so bad after all...

Heero's hands ripped themselves from the comforter's strands and scrabbled to slide beneath Wufei's chest to grip his shoulders and anchor their bodies together, and Wufei felt three or four sharp thrusts against him, shaking his entire body and making him arch his back in pleasure or pain, he couldn't even say anymore. Heero gasped loudly and his body sank into Wufei's. He could feel a heart hammering against his back. Heero drew in a shuddering breath, swallowed. His breath was harsh and ragged in Wufei's ear, his cheek resting against the dark hair, tousled and tangled with all the activity. The aching pressure, which had already subsided to a drop in the deluge of sensations, started to ebb quickly. Wufei's entire skin was shivering a bit, and the very air seemed to be tickling him as it brushed by.

Heero grunted slightly and moved away. Wufei shuddered under a barrage of unusual feelings; emptiness, an unpleasant wet sensation, sore muscles clenching slightly. He felt Heero fall besides him on the bed, springs squeaking one last time. Wufei found a shaking hand - his own, to his surprise - rise to smooth down the strands of the comforter that had been wrenched by his partner. He didn't turn the other way to look at Heero who lay besides him. On his side, from the way Wufei could feel a breath rustling his hair still.

Hands gripped his hips and turned him around, rolling him slowly onto his back. Wufei glanced up at the flushed face, haloed by the bedside light. Steady blue eyes searched his own for, he realized, traces of pain or regret, or, to put it in Yuy terms: assessing his status. Wufei held the gaze, unashamed and steady. The eyes were blank and hard, but the shoulders relaxed and the neck lost its slight tension as Heero realized that Wufei was, after all, okay with this - and a bit too late if he wasn't, anyway, Wufei thought with a limp twinge of irrational humor.

Then the lips curved ever so slightly. Wufei realized consciously something he'd already understood at an instinctive level for quite some time. Heero's eyes showed his soul and that was frighteningly mechanistic. When he smiled or scowled or used his mouth in any way, it was deliberate, controlled, a movement designed for clear-cut communication. No wonder Wufei relied instinctively on the man's body language to know what he was really thinking, because Heero's control never let something like that slip as far as his face. The other pilots thought Heero was a cold, unemotional bastard. Which wasn't entirely wrong, but they were missing the little that was there. Only a complete knowledge of martial arts and the education he'd made of the body above his allowed Wufei to read anything more than those lips wanted to express.

In this case though, his thoughts wasn't hard to follow, as Heero's eyes dropped down the smooth, hard chest under his palm to the erection lying against the soft skin of the lower abdomen. Wufei found a part of himself quivering with anticipation as Heero's hand smoothed down his skin towards the head of his erection, a thumb gently swiping the moisture from the head in a little burst of shivering sensation. Then the cold curve of lips broadened, still controlled. Wufei realized he had a good view of what he'd only seen in a flash before, Heero's body in its naked glory lying besides his own, erection now doused and wet in a nest of dark curls - for some reason that was where Wufei's scrutiny had ended up. Then the muscles rippled beneath the golden skin and Heero moved like a snake languidly coiling, down to-

Oh!

Now _this_... Wufei knew about this. Even his sheltered and disciplined education had not left him that ignorant. But he'd never in his wildest thoughts imagined anyone would ever be doing it to him!

He swallowed convulsively as he jerked his head back and away from the sight with reflex embarrassment. His eyes fastened on the wallpaper and picture, alien from their upside-down perspective, the curve of almond sprigs arching the wrong way and the painting a meaningless blob of muted colors. Warmth and wetness enveloped his erection and a tongue curved up and down the length, so much more agile and delicate than fingers, sending sympathetic shivers up and down the rest of him. He was quivering inside and out. He'd had just about enough of breaking new ground for one day! He wasn't sure he wanted to do this - he whimpered, a barely noticed noise at the base of his throat - although - the head of his erection touched smooth wet flesh - it would take an all-out attack by OZ forces at this point - a slight tug of suction dissolved his view of the wallpaper - to get him to stop Yuy from doing that, and he felt like he was going to die.

His body didn't last long, thoroughly swamped and excited by the tsunami of new sensations that had been crashing into him since his shower. He barely felt Heero remove himself and use his hand a few seconds before the rising feeling of tightening pressure in his groin submerged and dissolved him into a shiver of pleasure. 

He blinked several times. He'd knotted his fingers in his hair, the other hand was gripping Heero's shoulder. His vision cleared, to find the same upside down view of wallpaper and picture, though why he expected to see anything different...A feeling of cooling on his abdomen dragged him back to the rest of reality, which, he realized with resignation, was going to be wet and a bit sticky.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Heero glance around, eyes searching for something, completely unembarrassed. Was this something he'd done with his previous partner? Then with a mute shrug only Wufei would have noticed, the L1 pilot rolled up onto his knees and used a corner of the comforter to wipe himself and then Wufei off. Wufei felt vaguely offended on the behalf of an unknown Italian grandmother, but the thought slipped through his fingers. He suddenly realized that he was completely and utterly spent. Physically, mentally, emotionally. If it wasn't so complete, it would be comforting. The storm of anger and adrenaline that normally drove him was only a vague smudge on the distant horizon. It would be back tomorrow, but right now...Wufei felt his eyes close by themselves. It was the soldier in him that jerked them open again.

"Who takes first watch?" His eyes flickered to the comm device laying on the tank top on the floor which, he felt pretty sure, was linked to the alarms on Heero's laptop.

"I will." Heero's fingers idly traced a bruise the size of his hand on Wufei's thigh. Wufei was feeling so relaxed that even the pain had decided to slack off for a coffee break and a cigarette. He twitched away from the touch - his skin still felt sensitive - and struggled to roll himself into the sheets beneath the white wool. Heero helped by sliding his weight off of them and standing up, reaching for his gun and his comm. device.

"Why?"

Wufei glanced up, over his shoulder as he lay curled on his side. A glance at Heero, at his stance, explained the question. He wondered at it though.

"I guess I was curious. Besides...it felt right, with the shudo."

"The what?"

"The shudo." Wufei frowned. "Have you not heard of it?"

"I think...I think Dr J. used that word." Prickles ran up Wufei's spine as his mind shied away from some of the possible meanings of that comment. "It was when he encouraged me to find a partner for my sexual urges," Heero added, to Wufei's relief. "What does it mean, Chang?"

"I'll let you do the research afterwards," Wufei answered loftily.

"What? Oh."

"I guess it's a good thing you _did_ do some research," Wufei muttered, head sinking into a pillow that smelled faintly of dust and closed rooms. "I'm amazed you took time out of your mission preparations to do so though," he added, with a bit of a snap, Heero's original 'research' comment still nettling him. He didn't like to be caught out by the unexpected, to lose control over the situation, and that had been...he'd not been so much out of his depth since he'd last tried to understand Meiran. He felt like reacting the way he had then - anger, an old refuge - but the warrior with the dead soul spoke first. "I guess that's your usual thoroughness. It would be inefficient to risk an injury to an ally."

"...Actually..."

There was that word again. Wufei pried his eyes open to stare at Heero who was leaning over him to rescue the open tube of cream on the bed.

"Actually what?"

"I thought there was a chance we might do this one day. I just assumed it would be the other way around."

Other way around what, Wufei thought dully, then his mind exploded. He stared, flushing, at Heero who returned his gaze calmly, if somewhat quizzically.

"Wh-what? You thought- you'd let me-"

Heero shrugged. "It seemed logical. I had some previous sexual experience. Even if I never actually had penetrative sex before."

Wufei stared. It had never even occurred to him.

"Why are you surprised?" Heero's eyes narrowed, trying to understand. "Neither of us should have preconceptions as to roles."

"Well...I guess I did." Wufei found it strange to talk about this, and he was ready to bet it was a one-off thing. Heero was more than just curious about why this had happened though; he was gathering data and information to see what could be expected in the future. Things didn't just 'happen' in the soldier's world; they had to be understood and controlled. "Not that I'm-...I mean, I didn't particularly want-..." Wufei gave himself a mental slap. "I was thinking in terms of shudo. The..."

Wufei hesitated, then sat up, the sheets sliding down his bare chest, to stare directly into the blue eyes analyzing his words. This wasn't the virgin speaking. It was the warrior. The partner.

"In shudo, the more experienced warrior takes the active role." He knew his body language was telling Heero it wasn't sexual experience he was talking about. Heero's face and eyes didn't betray the slightest hint of feeling, but he put his hands on his hips, completely oblivious to his nakedness, in a gesture that made Wufei think he was both challenging and accepting that; maybe slightly surprised as well. The whole point about body language was that it wasn't words, a vocabulary, it was instinct, gut feeling, couldn't be fully explained. So Wufei answered it directly, chin lifting in challenge as his hands smoothed the sheet on his legs in admission.

"I can take you on bare-hand, Yuy, but in Wing, I have to admit you're unbeatable," he added vocally, to give his admission some more information, "You're unbeatable mentally too. You are a perfect soldier." His hand lifted slightly in apology at Heero's twitch, he knew that Yuy didn't like that term. "Your strength of mind, your dedication is-...I know you see this as mutual relief for a physical need, and it is mutual. But I also consider this a...contribution to something that I can strive for but may never quite achieve."

It was a distillation of the embarrassment and pain he'd gone through to admit this out loud, but it had to be said. Yuy would never accept a link between them if it wasn't fully understood and free of all possible hindrances. Wufei didn't add the fact that there was always the slight worry that Heero would jeopardize his drive by falling for someone- Duo for example - with all the disastrous distractions and emotional entanglement that might imply. But his eyes instinctively shifted to the wall behind which the L2 pilot - if Wufei's ancestors had any mercy on him at all - was sleeping deeply two rooms away. Heero seemed to be following his silent monologue at a gut level.

Wing's pilot nodded slowly, once. But his body was still challenging. He had no self-pride, beyond the almost physical necessity of being perfect and acing his missions. This probably didn't register on his radar.

Wufei shrugged. "Of course, now that that is established...maybe next time..."

The shoulders relaxed slightly. Heero actually shrugged. "I doubt we'll be taking it this far on a regular basis, we'll be too busy." But there was a slight wave of the hand that said clearly, maybe next time.

Wufei sank back into the sheets with a sigh. He felt drained, and also, now that he realized it, sticky and wet between his thighs and cheeks -ugh- and a bit sore as well. Not that much though, not as much as he'd feared. He'd have to remember what Yuy had done to him, however embarrassing, because he didn't want to injure the other pilot either if ever-...How on earth was he going to sleep after all that? He certainly felt tired, but his skin and nerves were still murmuring, and his head was spinning with what Heero had said and implied. And besides...

The door closed in a barely heard click.

How often was this going to happen anyway? And how about the blow job? Was Heero going to expect that from him now? And what about...

\---

Heero carefully opened the door again and glanced at the bed, where only a raven dark head was visible beneath the yellowy sheets. A soft wheeze told him the status of the bed's occupant. He ghosted along in perfect silence to pick up the clothes he'd completely forgotten about; he already had the comm. and his gun. His eyes glanced over the prone figure. There was no tenderness in them, nor in the language of bone and muscle. No feelings whatsoever. There was only assessment, and behind it, a measure of acceptance. He leaned over and switched off the bedside lamp, then turned in silence and darkness to exit the room.


	8. Tao

The conference facility split like a rotten orange. A few chairs tumbled down the three story gap created by the jaws of Nataku's clamp.

That made five. 

Ah, there was number six, cowering against the far wall.

The wall ceased to exist.

We got him, Nataku. Easy enough. Too easy.

There, two more. Faces, white with fear and twisted in panic, appeared on Nataku's monitors. The patterning program matched them to the faces of the targets in the database.

Two mobile suits appeared before Wufei and were dispatched with only minimal attention. The two men had hopped into an army jeep. Fools.

The dragon fang snaked out, whipped around a Leo that had put itself between the fleeing division leaders and the Gundam, and struck the jeep in an explosion of metal. A second later the gas tank caught and a fireball blossomed behind the Leo, knocking it forward into the beam glaive's scything sweep. Wufei's eyes were already scanning the rest of the base. That had been seven and eight. One more.

The base was burning, though Wufei had kept the destruction to a minimum. This was an administrative facility. Paper warriors deserved death as much as anyone else in a uniform, but not the administrative staff of civilians doing their jobs. Or the many families living on the low-security base. He could see some now; women and children being herded into an escape shuttle. The base was a floating man-made island off the coast of Japan, and the only way out was by air or by sea. Wufei automatically scanned the panicked families being evacuated, made a mental note to try to avoid that part of the base if he could, avoid too many civilian casualties -

He turned horrified eyes back to his monitor as the program found a match. His last target was at that instant shoving women and children out of the way and running on to the shuttle.

Coward!! Monstrous coward! After Wufei attacked the conference room he and his peers had been occupying, he had to know he was a target! And he was hiding among women and children!

Nataku was already lunging forward, swatting an aries out of the air instinctively, but-...

He couldn't leave Nataku standing empty in the middle of the still-hostile base to go and drag the dog out. And the only way of getting his target in the Gundam would be to take down the shuttle.

"I guess we have no choice, Nataku." Wufei turned, strafed an MS depot with his flamethrower in a fit of anger, kicked a Leo into the sea and took off. Behind him, the shuttle did so as well, heading in the opposite direction.

Wufei hit the comms, keyed in the Mission Finished sequence.

//Wufei?// Winner's voice. //Done?//

"Yes. One of them escaped," Wufei added, biting down on the words.

There was a shuffle in the background on the other end of the radio. //Status?// Yuy.

"Me or the mission?" Wufei asked acidly, knowing full well which one Yuy meant.

//Can the target still be reached?//

"No." Wufei snapped. If the bastard could still be reached, he'd be dead, or as good as! "He boarded a civilian shuttle evacuating the families on the base."

//You couldn't catch a civilian shuttle?!// Yuy barked. Wufei said nothing. In the background however, Winner and Maxwell had quite a lot to say.

//It wouldn't be politically wise to attack unarmed civilians, Heero.// Quatre's voice, the usual sad but distant tones he used when he made a decision as their tactician rather than the human being he wanted to be.

//Good god man! Did you want him to shoot down kids?!// Duo said, practically at the same time, causing the radio to whine a little. //If the guy used them as shields, what was Wufee gonna do? I mean, for once he shows a bit of heart, ya gonna-//

Wufei frowned.

//The mission-// Yuy's voice was dark.

"Signing off," Wufei said, and switched off comms before they could acknowledge.

Politics? Heart? Mission?

Wufei leaned back and crossed his arms on his chest, trying to relax and feeling more annoyed than when he'd seen the target board the shuttle.

"Things were simpler when we were alone. Right, Nataku? Sometimes-"

The radio hummed. Damn. Wufei hesitated but switched it on, maybe they had something important to say besides all the arguing.

//Come in, Gundam over Jap point. Chang Wufei? Come in.//

Wufei's hand froze. His whole body shuddered to a stop on hearing those patrician tones from the speaker.

//Ah, you are now receiving me, according to this device.//

Turn it off! Turn it off turn it off turn it off-

Wufei's hand stayed frozen over the controls.

//This is Chang Wufei, isn't it? Well if it wasn't, you'd have already switched off the comm.// Treize's educated tones took a thoughtful turn. It was the same voice he'd used during their one and only encounter to date, when Treize had bested him in their duel and then decided, face amused but eyes thoughtful, to let him go instead of killing him. //I'm fairly certain it is you. When I heard of a devastating Gundam attack that killed all division heads on I45, but spared the coward who ran onto a civilian shuttle...I don't know all you pilots, but I know one or two of the others who would not hesitate long before shooting. You and I have only met once, but I think I know you too. You are honorable, you don't make war on women and children, do you...//

Wufei felt like he was caught in a web, the words tingling along the sticky strands, making his whole body and soul vibrate with helpless fury.

//Wufei?...Won't you talk to me? Well, I suppose not. I'm sorry I defaulted on our return match. I'm sure you heard of my circumstances.// Imprisoned by Romefeller. Betrayed by those who had put him in power. Locked away in...Luxemburg? Bruxelles?

//This is only temporary however.// The cultured tone betrayed a hint of a smile, a whisper of co-conspiracy. Turn it off turn it off turn it - //I believe my fortunes will change soon. I hope we will one day have the opportunity of facing off. Oh, for that to happen though, you will have to drop to sea-level and head north. I still have my ins and outs in the military channels, and a considerable fleet of mobile dolls are heading your way at bearing-// Treize rattled off a few numbers. Wufei watched in horror as strands of the spider's web jerked his hand to the keyboard where it entered the coordinates. 

//They are trying to get in below your radar but if you turn to channel 1349, you should be able to trace them via the radio waves of their controllers.// Click of keys. A series of radio waves started dancing on his screen. Wufei almost tried to ignore them out of sheer spite, but he couldn't do that to Nataku.

//...Did I mention how much I loathe those machines? It’s one of the reasons I am where I am, I suppose. I think war should be fought among human beings willing to die for their beliefs, their notion of honor, of right and wrong. That's what gives it meaning. The dolls, well, it makes a mockery of it all. It empowers the weak and makes a warrior's strength and courage meaningless. But I don't have the time to chat about that. If you've changed your bearing as I suggested, you will be out of range of this pirated channel soon.// The transmission was starting to crackle. //Until we meet again. My friend. Out.//

He was all alone in Nataku's hard embrace. The waves rushed and whistled beneath them both.

Wufei's hands convulsed on the throttle and he bowed his head forward, lips curling in an unvoiced scream of anger.

 

 

He carefully parked the flatbed truck in his spot in the underground parking lot and switched off the engine. He sat for a minute staring at the steering wheel. Then he slipped from the cab, checked the perimeter automatically and headed out. He noticed in passing that Wing's hatch was open. Heero either didn't hear him or chose to ignore him.

Good. He didn't want to deal with Heero right now, he had the feeling he might get violent with the soldier. It was strange that he could-...that he could let Heero fuck him and that nothing would change between them. They'd get up the following morning and continue doing the impossible, opposing OZ with their small forces, working on as allies and sometimes partners, sparring, planning attacks...the occasional handjob...But blow a small-time assassination mission and watch your estimate tumble in the eyes of the oh-so-perfect soldier. If Heero said anything - even grunted - Wufei would probably beat the crap out of him in his present mood.

Wufei leapt quickly up the stairs towards the cloud-muffled afternoon, glancing around instinctively before leaving the shelter of the garage's exit. They were hiding out in the outskirts of Fukuoka, on Kyuushyuu. The suburbs they'd chosen had been near an Alliance base that had been severely bombed during OZ's coup. The base and the area adjacent had been evacuated, and in the various political and military upheavals that followed, they were still mostly unoccupied, many buildings unsafe. The underground parking lot was secure though, they'd checked it thoroughly for damage. The abandoned house they were using lay a few hundred feet from it, in a neighborhood most people still avoided. Their informants had told them the family had emigrated and wouldn't return until things had definitely settled. It was a good hiding place. Wufei had been very careful in his approach to avoid leading the mechanized hounds on his trail to their doorstep.

The L5 pilot entered quietly, slipping his shoes off and ghosting towards the dojo.

"Fei?"

He walked on as if he hadn't heard the hesitant question from the kitchen. From the corner of his eyes he saw Duo put down his cup on the kitchen table, and at the same time he saw Quatre, without lifting his head from his laptop, reach across and put a hand on the L2 pilot's arm. He didn't wait to see what Duo would do or say next, if anything. He continued on to the dojo.

It wasn't very big. This being Japan, the small room, nine feet by twelve, was still a touch of luxury. It had been used as a TV room, but Heero and Wufei had arrived in the house first and had, in unspoken accord, moved the entertainment system and chairs out of the dojo and into a bedroom (which Duo had promptly claimed on arrival), so that the small room could be used for its intended purpose.

The sprung wood flooring shivered lightly beneath his bare feet. A stray ray of light crept into the single window and brushed the decorative wooden inner walls. Wufei dropped his duffel bag in a corner and took up first position. Breathed.

He'd reached the third form when he faltered. He breathed out through his nose, took up first position again, breathed, then breathed again, paying particular attention to the play of muscles across his chest and abdomen, the movement of the chi from higher to lower.

It annoyed him that-

No, concentrate.

It just annoyed him that the others would think he was upset at failing the mission!

Concentrate. Begin.

First form, second, third-

As if he actually cared about these missions.

His fist lunged and his body followed like a crane swooping into fifth form and he had to stop again because otherwise he'd have dealt the wall a vicious blow. Damn dojo was too small. But there were a few people still living in the neighborhood, he couldn't risk doing this in the garden. The parking lot? No, Yuy was down there. He returned to the middle of the room and took up first position again, breathed in and out slowly, before plunging into the violence again, aiming the lines of movement at the corners of the room.

Treize. Mission. Justice. Enough!

He felt more than heard Duo creep up to the door, though the braided teen stayed in the shadows. Wufei would not normally be able to notice their master of stealth. Either Wufei's nerves were so shredded they were now better than radar, or Duo was deliberately revealing his presence, in an offer of- what, talk? Comfort? Moral support? Wufei continued the shortened movements of his main kata, knuckles and legs occasionally brushing the wooden walls like bird wings beating against a cage. After a few minutes, the presence at the door - which had mercifully remained silent - left.

Justice. Mission. Treize.

Wufei faltered and nearly fetched up against a wall. He laid both hands against it, head swimming at the sudden interruption of the movements that were as natural to him as breathing. The thin wood, lattice work covered in decorative panels, creaked a bit as he found himself increasing the pressure as if he could shove his way out.

He snarled silently and resumed first position. Took a breath.

Justice mission Treize mission justice-

From the kitchen he thought he heard the crash of a cup hitting the table and a chair being shoved back, but the faint, distant sounds were lost in the hurricane.

Wufei could feel his lips curl back in the silent scream again. The second movement of the kata ended with his fist buried in the wooden wall, panel punched through and lattice work behind it snapped. A flash of the external wall, crude and bare, showed beyond. He ignored Quatre who'd appeared, eyes wide, in the doorway. He spun and buried his bare foot in another panel, causing the whole thin frame of lattice to crash back into the outer wall a few inches behind it. He used the leg as support and spun again, bringing his other knee up into the fallen panel, breaking it in half. The rounded crack of the panel splitting, echoed by the smaller crunching sounds of the lattice beams snapping beneath it, nearly covered-

"Fei?!"

\- the sound of Duo's voice as he ran up. Wufei spun into a new form, barely noting the braided pilot being shoved away from the door by Quatre. He scythed the intangible enemy with his right leg, shifted his support, shot up and spun and brought his left fist backhand into the wall again. The panel resonated like a drum and bounced, and then crashed into the wall as his right fist followed through, punching it savagely.

"Fei! Let me-"

"Duo, get back!"

What was he doing?!

Turn, lunge, kick, straighten. Three steps, fists hammering the empty air.

What was he fighting for?!

He spun and crashed his right foot backwards into a panel, spun again and punched through the panel as it fell towards him. His fist ripped through the decorative wood. He brushed away the upper part of the panel before it hit him in the face, nerves on fire, a creature of pure reflex. He ripped his hand free of the lattice work that tried to capture him, tame him. He noted in the far corner of his mind the cuts and splinters on his fist. Unimportant. Ninth form.

He had just killed eight men from the Romefeller faction of OZ - fall back on one bent knee, dodging an invisible blow, fist lunging up to break the elusive opponent's leg - who had imprisoned Treize.

Sweep, lunge again.

Treize, whose men had attacked his colony and had caused Meiran's death.

Fist out, swing - a panel cracked and lurched towards him. He dodged it gracefully. Blood splattered on the wooden floor. He struck the panel with the edge of his left hand as it fell past him. It landed in splinters, scoring the floorboards.

Treize, who had beaten him and let him go, who hated mobile dolls with the same passion as Wufei, and for pretty much the same reasons.

Swing, balance, leg shooting out to score on the next panel in line-

Distant voice: "'Ro, come on! He's lost it!"

The panel screamed as a nail caught; a previously hidden metal joist behind it ripped through the wood like a hostile hand reaching for him. He caught himself just before punching it instinctively.

"Do something!" At the door.

"What do you suggest I do?" Heero, voice indifferent.

"Help me stop him!"

Step back, thirteenth form, lunge forward, attack the resisting panel again.

"Why?"

The panel shattered, pieces of wood skittering across the floor, catching in the grooves of the slats.

"Wh-why?! He's destroying the fucking dojo!"

"So? You don't use it."

"But-"

"The house doesn't belong to us. Who cares about the woodworks?"

"But he's bleeding!"

Wufei could almost feel analytical eyes weighing him professionally as he spun into the next form.

"He's not injured himself seriously."

Lunge back, sweep, dart across the room to a previously untouched wall.

"Call me if he opens a vein. I suggest you don't try to stop him by yourself. You're good at hand-to-hand, but not that good."

"Damn it Yuy-" voices faded.

Wufei's lips curled back into a savage smile as he entered into the final five forms.

So here he was

-crash-

fighting and killing Treize's enemies

\- lash, lunge, wham -

while the man himself sat peacefully under house arrest plotting his return

\- fall back, dodge, swing, smash -

and told Wufei how to evade mobile dolls

\- swing, aim for an intact panel, clang! Another joist -

so that Wufei could continue on and on with his hollow partisan activities

\- backhand the joist, rip of nail from plaster -

in the name of colonies that had renounced them and were arming for war

\- smash the joist with a bloodied left fist, tear it out of the wall -

and left him to return to a safe-house to have sex with a man

\- foot shoots out and scythes the joist as it tumbles through the air, sending it crashing across the room -

and live with a bunch of near-psychotic teenage terrorists

\- spin and slam leg back into remaining section of wall panel, crack it straight down the middle -

waiting for another mission that would send him to fight his enemy's enemies, with no sense of justice or right or wrong or honor just kill, kill, kill

\- fall back, spin, sweep panel onto the floor -

until they shot him down like a dog.

_Nataku!_

Fall back, bloodied fists pulled back at his side. Breathe. Hands down. Breathe.

He sank to his knees, dropping immediately into meditation.

 

 

The slight awareness of the outside world he kept instinctively warned him when Duo came back. At first he only stayed a minute. The small part of Wufei that had not escaped to timeless, painless nothingness kept an eye on his internal clock. It was an hour later that Duo returned, and stood, staring, for ten whole minutes, letting his presence be felt. He said nothing though. Wufei didn't even have to make a conscious decision to ignore him. His wise silence uninterrupted, Duo left again with a shrug, to get ready and leave on his own, nocturnal mission.

Quatre never showed up. He didn't need to be near Wufei to know that it was best he was not disturbed.

The afternoon started to die. A small breeze crept hesitantly into the dojo, stirred the dust in the corners, tried to nudge the wood piled hither and thither.

Wufei felt not the slightest trace of hesitation or doubt in Heero's firm step as Wing's pilot flipped on the lights, stepped over decorative kindling and circled him. In the deep quiet of his trance, he heard/felt Heero kick a few pieces of wood out of the way and kneel before him. And wait.

Wufei slowly gathered the nothingness around him, grasped it in his hands, buried it in his heart to the hilt...His shoulder relaxed slightly, giving Heero permission to be there, not that the L1 pilot had sought it.

He felt Heero reach for his hand. "It's been three hours. If we don't deal with this now, they could get infected." Heero's voice was practical.

Wufei watched with detachment the strong callused hands turn his over, angling the cuts to the dying afternoon light. Heero snapped open the medical kit he'd brought and fished out forceps, disinfectant, thread and curved needles, bandages and, after a quick glance at the sky fading to slate outside and the dim lights overhead, a flashlight. He handed the last to Wufei without a word or a glance.

Wufei held the light with his free hand, watched the bowed head as Heero cleaned his cuts, fished out splinters, applied disinfectant.

Heero's hands finally stilled; cobalt blue eyes, flat as glass, caught his.

"You're leaving." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

Heero seemed to plunge into that breath of stillness for a few moments. Even his body didn't express what was going through his mind, what internal arguments he was trying out, what words he was attempting to formulate. If any.

Finally he turned slightly, put the plain suture thread back into the kit and took out the more expensive catgut instead. Wufei was silent as Heero bowed over his wounds once more, putting in the absorbable sutures with practiced ease. A flicker of blue caught his eye as Heero glance up briefly.

He's trying to understand...Wufei tasted the thought, trying to decide how he felt about that. Surprise was predominant. Heero probably knew Wufei wouldn't change his mind whatever he said. Which was why he wasn't trying to argue with Wufei. Thus comprehension would bring no benefits, and so should not be required. That was the way Heero thought. It was efficient like everything he did; why waste mental resources pondering a problem whose solution would not help the war?

He knew Heero understood his display in the dojo. This was the man who had gone around to each member of the Noventa family and offered to let them execute him to make up for a single mistake. But Heero had done that when it had seemed the Gundams and their pilots were deadlocked, the colonies hostage, and their lives expendable. The fact that Wufei would consider leaving the war now, leaving the missions, and just go...No, Heero would not be able to understand that. On that one point, they were too different.

Heero reached for his other hand. Wufei switched the light around, feeling the three freshly-applied stitches stretch under bandages as he clasped the plastic casing.

"Peace..." Heero looked almost stunned he'd said anything. Wufei was not so surprised; that Heero had spoken and that his new-found ideal would be the first word out of his mouth. Heero had changed a lot recently. The man-boy who had thrown Wufei to the floor and humped him that first time had only one motto. Find your enemy and kill him efficiently. Since then, he'd been plunged into the same whirlwind of war as Wufei and the 'finding your enemy' part had become difficult for all of them when the factions aligned against them changed every week. Heero had apparently found something to believe in and anchor him; the peace that Relena Peacecraft advocated. Whatever he thought of her as a person, Wufei couldn't help but remember her in her Queen regalia, affirming universal peace as if it were a concept that was merely a matter of will. Heero had apparently decided to believe in it, with that same hard uncaring core of efficiency and brutality that he'd used to kill his enemies. Wufei tried to decide whether this was a good thing.

"Yes. Peace. And war. You and Treize are like two sides of the same coin," Wufei said, almost to himself.

Heero looked up at him blankly, hand poised with the forceps.

"You live and kill and die for your big ideals."

Blue eyes searched his with utter incomprehension. Wufei wasn't going to bother to explain, what was the point?

"I don't believe in peace, Heero."

Huh. The words had slipped out. Looked like a part of him _did_ want to explain. How strange. He ignored the widening of Heero’s eyes, the sudden grip of the previously careful fingers on his cuts. He was listening to his own words with curiosity. What would he say, what _could_ he say, to get through to Heero...

"Peace is not possible. It is an ideal you strive for, but it is not real. I don't believe in it. I don't believe it would be a good thing even if it was achievable." Heero's eyes widened even more and in that moment of surprise he looked his age. "Men will always use weapons on each other, it is their nature."

"If we remove OZ and Romefeller, this will stop the production of mobile suits," Heero said firmly. Wufei wondered what was going through that strange head of his. How would the straight lines he lived by cope with Wufei's words? He should stop, shouldn't say anything more...

"And will you also remove tanks, Yuy? Bombs?"

"Yes. Peace implies-"

"Guns? Knives?"

"We will -"

"Broken bottles?" Wufei's lips curled. "Rat poison?"

"- fight the war so that people can -... rat poison?"

"...Didn't you know? My colony was attacked over a year ago. By OZ, the Alliance. By ordinary men and women following orders. They were going to use biological weapons against us. The kind you use to wipe vermin from an unoccupied space station. I'd like to point out at his juncture that we weren't at war with anybody. They didn't know of Nataku's presence at that time." The Gundam, or the heart-strong girl who fought them tooth and nail to stop them. But he didn't go into details. That was something for himself alone. "We were, for lack of a better term, at peace. Tell me, will your Peace stop this from happening again?"

Heero was silent for a few moments, eyes flickering as they tracked every detail of Wufei's pupils as if trying to gage the depth of the darkness there. He was too honest to lie, or to gloss over the truth.

"Real peace would," he said finally. His eyes were turned inward now. Wufei wondered what he was seeing there.

"There is no such thing."

"I fight because I believe there is." He seemed surprised at his own words, and so was Wufei. Heero? Believe? An act of faith from a weapon?

"And I believe that if such a thing existed, it would be a disaster."

Finally anger flared at the back of those eyes. "Why?" Heero snapped.

"Because it would bring the strong down to the level of the weak. It would castrate the human race, Yuy. Turn us all into sheep. But that won't happen because the wolf is more than skin-deep, and even your wonderful Relena can't drag him out."

Anger blazed in Heero's eyes, then flickered out. The L1 pilot turned his attention back to the hand in his palm and fished out a piece of wood with the forceps, a bit less gently than he could have, Wufei thought with a wince.

"So what was it that you were fighting for all this time?"

Heero knew, Wufei realized, he just wanted Wufei to say it, to lay it out where they could both look at it.

"Justice."

"And that's not an ideal?" Wufei watched Heero's brow crease as he struggled with unfamiliar concepts.

"It's definable, and it's attainable. So I don't think it qualifies," Wufei said, using the slightly stuffy scholarly tones to hide the slight waver in his soul. Justice had seemed so simple and clear-cut to start with. But the only clear cut turned out to be the one that Treize failed to make in Wufei's throat with his saber. After that everything got a bit fuzzy and messy and he started following other paths, fighting for others, for the weak, for missions, for, ultimately, a peace which he didn't believe in.

As far as Wufei was concerned, a peace without justice could go hang itself.

And that was why he had to leave. The paths the others were dragging him down were not his own. He had to find it again, that one shining path that led to Justice. He wouldn't find it here, distracted by...distracted by other people.

"I'm taking Nataku to outer space," Wufei said abruptly. The path started in the ashes of his destroyed colony. He would begin there and see where he would go after that.

Heero was silent as he sutured a gash. Then he said: "Winner has been keeping an eye on the situation in space. There's a lot going on out there. I think that is where the next battlefield will lie." There was almost a question in that comment.

"I think you will all have to go into space sooner or later," Wufei said quietly. "But I do not think our paths will cross."

Heero's head sank the breadth of a shadow, in acceptance and dismissal. Wufei felt a stab of regret. He knew that without Heero to be his beacon and rival, he would lose part of himself, but it was something he was going to have to accept.

The last bandage was fastened carefully. "The stitches will dissolve within ten days," Heero said needlessly. "But if you see any reddening or swelling you should try to get professional help." He didn't sound hopeful. Space was as hostile to them as Earth at present.

"I know." Wufei rose gracefully. Heero stayed on his knees, eyes flickering over Wufei's feet, checking for further injury.

Wufei glanced back after two steps. "What are you going to do for an arrangement?" he asked curiously. He felt a fleeting concern for Heero's performance. Wufei didn't like the thought that his leaving might compromise his partn- his former partner's efficiency. But that wouldn't stop him from leaving.

Heero shrugged, eyes on the Kamiza that Wufei had left intact. He looked distant and unconcerned with trivialities.

"I'm sure Relena wouldn't mind," Wufei said thoughtfully. His spontaneous little barb earned him a horrified glare.

Neatly compartmentalized, Wufei thought with an inner smirk. Relena was the nucleus of the new world order, the big shiny Peace, the living, breathing core of Yuy's ideal; the soldier was too down-to-earth and short-sighted to be able to live, kill and die for a nebulous idea, he had to materialize it. As such, Relena wasn't for sex! Never mind that she wasn't an incarnate ideal but a real girl, and, Wufei thought dryly, a good tumble followed by a dramatic heartbreak would get her reacquainted with reality for the good of all.

Still, it was probably for the best. Even a normal man would hesitate to put a foot in that emotional mine-field. Yuy would rather self-destruct than go there. Well, good luck with Barton, Wufei thought, somewhat cruelly; from what I've seen he doesn't have much need for an arrangement but he's a good soldier and will do as he's told.

"Chang?"

"What?" Wufei turned towards the door.

"There are a lot of factions in space. It's a complex situation. Who are you going to fight?"

"Everybody. Sayonara, Yuy."

"Ja matta."

Wufei cast one fleeting glance back at the kneeling form putting the medical kit back in order. See you later? At the gates of hell, maybe. That would be the only place their paths would cross now.


	9. The Path Of The Sword

'In the face of evil, one would rather be a broken jade than a brick intact.'  
\--- Chinese proverb.

The wreckage of suits and stars orbited around them.

_Throw down your weapons. When the weak are armed they lose control. The weak should not fight._

Nataku was the unmoving center of a small galaxy of debris, and the stars moved around them both.

_I'll keep on taking my own path. I take no orders._

The only thing that was no longer moving was time. It had ceased to function along with his Gundam, leaving Wufei hanging in space like a fly in amber, as minutes or centuries fled by outside.

_Wufei, strength is in the mind, and the mind is a battle against oneself._

It would be easier to fight a battle against oneself if a whole fleet of mobile dolls and warmongering fools from every faction is space didn't continuously insist on interfering, Wufei thought with slight sarcasm; it coloured his meditation like bubbles of air caught in the same amber.

At least...

_Justice is believing in yourself, not lying to yourself, and never betraying yourself._

At least he'd followed his path to its logical conclusion. He hoped Master Li would approve. The old man had also followed his righteous path, to pretty much the same conclusion as Wufei. All roads led to the same grave at the end, but the manner of going honored or dishonored the life that was-

Beep-beep

The noise fractured the amber and the eternal dance of debris around him. Wufei opened his eyes a fraction, glanced at the long-distance radar. Analysed the approaching signature. Recognized the FOF signal.

Huh. Well, Nataku, looks like our road may go on a little further.

He closed his eyes again and waited patiently for the transport shuttle to approach and pick him up.

 

 

The door opened to reveal the shuttle's cabin and the occupants. Wufei glanced without surprise at Heero off to one side. He was sitting in his usual pose, arms crossed, face set. A brief glance up was acknowledgment and greeting. Wufei met the gaze for a second in return. He then turned to the shuttle's pilot, who was not someone he'd expected. The last he'd seen of Sally, she'd been with her resistance cell in China, but that had been a long ago in terms of political upheaval and rearrangement of allegiances. If he'd thought of her at all, he would have been quite unable to say if she still had any opponents to fight against in China, or if he would have to consider her a friend or foe at this juncture. Her presence here with Heero and two - now three - Gundams in her shuttle's hold probably meant she was not an enemy.

It didn't mean she was on his side, of course. No one was. It was simpler that way.

"It's been a while," Sally said with her quiet smile. Her eyes flicked curiously between Heero and Wufei but if she was expecting a greeting between them she was going to be disappointed. Or to be more precise, she'd missed it. 

Wufei almost smiled. It had been too long...He'd only left a month ago, but it was long enough in terms of battle and destruction and a solitary path. And getting distracted by people whining at him to join this or that side, trying their ‘irrefutable’ arguments on him and expecting him to fall in line. It was nice to be once more with someone who understood exactly how he thought.

So... Heavyarms wasn't space worthy. And Nataku was too damaged for a long space flight. He very much doubted Heero would let him ‘borrow’ the other suit, not without one hell of a fight. But he had to get to Libra, follow his path to its inevitable and bloody conclusion.

Wufei considered the implications of Sally's flight plan to Peacemillion even as he found himself sarcastically suggesting he'd commandeer the shuttle and head for Libra instead.

His baiting was rewarded with the slightest snort from the seat on the other side of the cabin. But Sally apparently took him seriously.

"Good point, I never thought of that. But on Peacemillion, there are supplies and engineers who can repair your Gundam. You can go and attack Libra afterwards," she added kindly.

Wufei glanced at Heero, trying to read him. "Is that why you want me to come?" Just to repair Nataku? No strings attached, no promises made or demanded?

Heero said nothing. Wufei noted his silence. As he noted that Heero was on his way to Peacemillion as well.

Sally was looking at them curiously. She'd obviously been surprised at their lack of greeting when he'd come in, and she seemed slightly embarrassed by Heero's silence now. She gave Wufei an apologetic smile, uncomfortable at the lack of friendliness which she thought she was perceiving. She was missing a lot of history, Wufei reminded himself, as well as the ability to follow the silent argument that had been running practically since he'd entered the cabin.

Wufei considered Sally's offer of the help aboard Peacemillion, and sat down with a scowl. He felt Heero note both his slight concession and his overall rejection. A flexing of strong shoulders, bared by the tank top without any regards to the chill of the air conditioning, told him what Heero thought of his stubbornness.

Then the alarms sounded.

 

 

Wufei's steps slowed as he passed Nataku. The machine, still noble in its ruin, seemed to beckon. Heero was right of course, it would be suicide to use his Gundam to fight one virgo, let alone forty. But...it would be his path! If he was going to die he wanted it to be in Nataku's arms.

Okay that sounded a bit defeatist. No, the attraction of that plan was that it was simple and he understood it thoroughly. He depended on no-one, he was alone as he should be, with Nataku, and he would fight until he died, end of story.

Whereas this! He picked up his pace and used the low gravity to float to the far end of the hold. This... he didn't understand at all.

Take Zero?

What was Heero thinking?

Though his mind was racing, most of Wufei was already in combat mode, slipping quickly into a command seat of familiar design, booting up systems, waiting for Sally to open the cargo bay doors.

Heero understood him better than anyone. Why on earth was he giving Wufei the means to get out?! Out of the trap of the White Fang forces surrounding him. _And_ out of the snare of Sally's kind offer that would leave him beholden to others. Out of all the complications that were trying to drag him into one side or the other of the fight for peace, trying to integrate him to one or the other set of values.

His fingers flew over the thruster settings, the radar panels. They were fortunately similar to Nataku's set up. Right, this was Gundam zero, the original. He could use it. In fact he could take it. Oh, he would never be dishonorable enough to leave Sally and a now defenseless Heero - why why why had Heero let him - concentrate. He wouldn't leave them to face forty virgos in a shuttle, he'd get rid of the enemy first, but after that, how could Heero know he would bring Zero back?

The radar picked up the enemy and Wufei's pulse started to accelerate with anticipation as he maneuvered out of the bay. The jets and the thrusters obeyed his delicate touches to perfection. He could feel the power in this machine. He frowned slightly at the targeting system. He didn't like the heads-up display, he didn't need it, and he preferred to see his enemy face to face and without electronic interpretations creating a false impression of remove between them. This was life and death. He was about to get more intimate with these machines than he'd ever been with anyone, save the man who'd given him this further chance to strike back.

A crosshair danced on the viewer before him.

What had Heero meant? Why had he warned Wufei about the cockpit system?

The hum turned into a roar as he cleared the shuttle and rocketed away towards his foe.

While you pilot Zero, it will tell you who your enemies are. What had Heero meant by that?

Wufei knew who his enemies were. That's why he'd left earth, to make that very clear. His enemies were those foolish enough to bring an arsenal into the fragile clockwork balance of space. His enemies were the ones who had brought injustice to the colonies, the rule of the weak bearing weapons. His enemies were the ones who thought their strength was greater than his, and were trying to impose their values on him.

His enemies were the ones he'd destroy to prove to them just how wrong they were.

"Well, Zero, show me. Let's see what you can do!"

His enemy closed around him. It was time to see who was right and who was strongest.

He dodged the first three shots. Stupid dolls. Moronic pre-programmed pieces of hardware, they always opened with the same volley, he could avoid it in his sleep. The first two went down easily, it was the usual opening gambit, almost boring in its predictability. He caught the next shot on his shield - and felt a moment of elation at the similarity between Zero and his beloved Nataku.

Two more units went down. He was in the middle of their formation now, that and their numbers made the next few moves of his enemy unpredictable and now the real fight was-

He dodged and hurled himself forward with his beam sword swinging. Two more down.

Okay, scratch that. The dolls were sluggish responding today, he could still see their programming jerking them around like cheap puppets, putting them exactly where he wanted them to be to - slash, hack - cut them down. Two more exploded in silent blossoms of fire and metal behind him.

He swung up the beam canon instinctively, knowing exactly where that clump of dolls would dodge to regroup and -

The beam scythed through the air and the thought cut through his mind with the same luminous intensity.

The cockpit system!

It was -...

Targets and crosshairs danced before his eyes on the screen, and in his mind like little bulls-eyes.

It was somehow-...

Three dolls tried to dodge and regroup and were met by the beam of destructive light right at the supposedly safe spot they had gathered.

Interesting...

Two more machines were down, the sword scything them in a single, graceful arc, sending their exploding carcasses rocketing into a third on the predicted trajectory.

At that point, Wufei realized he'd been fighting with his eyes closed for the last minute, at least.

The attack vectors and crosshairs in his mind grew frantic. The doll's program was trying to adapt to its target's greater speed and maneuverability. It was starting to compensate.

Wufei smiled savagely, alone against his enemies and relishing it. Now it would get fun!

He slashed and spun and dodged and the virgos fell, and one got through his defences, and shot him straight in the powerpack on his Gundam's back.

Zero exploded into a ball of fire and molten metal, its cabin bathed in heat so great the human body within didn't burn but vaporized.

Wufei shouted and slammed back into the seat.

What was that?!

He was thrown forward as two beams hit him, and he sent Zero spinning and diving away on instinct. His eyes were wide but unseeing, mind screaming - as Zero showed him the path each virgo would take, and how they would try to outmanoeuvre him, and how they would, eventually - maybe not these but the next wave or the next - how they would eventually kill him.

"No!"

Wufei died again and again. Each twist he took to avoid his fate placed him in the path of the next deadly trap.

Zero was showing him his future. What there was of it. The mathematical equations of his solitary fight were running at top speed within the new Wing's computer system and coming up with only one outcome.

"I can fight on my own! And I'll die that way!" Wufei shouted. He didn't feel the shots slamming into him. His eyes were blind to the spiral of vectors tightening around him like a noose.

Treize...

Zero peeled his reasons and his excuses away layer by layer until it hit rock.

Wufei snarled and swung his beam at the image in his mind. Treize! Destroy him, destroy the enemy! The image melted and a virgo exploded just as it was about to shoot him point-blank, but Wufei barely noticed. He was feeling the press of a cold blade against his throat as Treize defeated him again and again.

Treize is as strong as you are...and he has an army behind him. How will you defeat him by yourself? Wing Zero was as coldly challenging as its owner, pushing Wufei to move past the images of himself he wanted to keep, to burn down to what was essential.

And then there was the other one. Zero flicked a few more preconceptions from his mind, getting down to the meat of the matter. The other one. Milliardo Peacecraft, since that was the name he'd decided on this week. Didn't matter. The man who had armed space. The man who had tainted the one thing that was still pure and untouched by the madness on earth, and dragged it into the final conflict.

Zechs, in an illusion of Wing Zero, was there, right in front of him, trying to tempt Wufei to his side. Fight for the colonies...Join me...Wufei smiled and drove his sword without hesitation into that maddening, self-righteous bastard.

Outside, in the real world, another virgo exploded, unnoticed. The dolls were having trouble regrouping fast enough, Zero destroying each time the central unit of their formations, leaving them to scurry in tatters. Not that the pilot was fully aware of any of this.

In the cockpit and in Wufei's head, Treize and Zechs were always just out of reach. They were the ones he had to attack! They were his enemy! Their armies were just symptoms, tools for them. They were the ones who had caused so much pain and death already, and were planning on unleashing more on a scale never seen before. It was his duty to stop them!

So why?! Why was Zero showing him dying again and again, and his enemy out of reach?

Was this his future? He knew he was going to die soon but...would he fail as well?

Wufei tasted blood from where he'd savagely bit down on his own flesh in a rage and horror he'd never felt before.

He didn't mind dying. But he wouldn't - couldn't - not make those men pay first. His whole life, every single battle he'd fought, had been for that. He couldn't just -...

Finally it came down to the crux.

Zero had shown him his enemies all right. Heero had been completely correct as usual.

Now it was showing him his future with beautiful, cruel clarity.

He could stay solitary and uncompromised, and die trying to bring his enemies to justice. It would certainly look glorious on his tombstone but he knew it would be a failure. He didn't want anything written on his tombstone if those of his opponents weren't right next to his.

His other option...

A flash - his memory or Zero's interference, it no longer mattered. Duo, Trowa, Quatre...Heero, glaring at him in a familiar pose of acceptance and challenge.

They were following a different path, but it led to the same destination, to the deaths of the two warmongers who were planning on putting the solar system to the torch.

Zero seemed to smirk at him. Wufei registered, at the very edge of his perception, that his body had stopped fighting, because all his enemies were destroyed. For now. He was floating in a sea of stars and ruin again. This time it was his mind that was adrift.

His enemies...his enemies were Treize and Zechs. And he would defeat them. That was the only path he could choose if he wanted to stay true to himself and the people who had died for him. And he now had the means to achieve this. All he had to do was accept the bitter realization that he couldn't do it alone.

Of course, that didn't mean he wasn't going to die, Zero informed him almost as an afterthought before switching off the strange targeting system and powering down. Chances were still good that the closest he would get to his goal would be dying while helping the others achieve it. But... they _would_ achieve it, if they went for it with the same determination that they always showed. They were the only pure warriors on earth and in space. He knew that, somehow, the five of them would prevail, even if they were not all alive to see it happen.

Wufei put his numbed hands back on the controls, jetted towards Sally's shuttle some distance off. He decided, as he left the broken pieces of metal in empty orbits behind him, that that was, in finality, justice enough for him.

Now to give Sally the good news. Heero already knew it of course, had known it since Wufei had accepted to use Wing Zero to defeat his enemy rather than die uselessly in Nataku. Wufei found himself smiling coldly. Never underestimate Heero Yuy. He'd grown even more impressive in the last few months. This new goal of his, this...peace. It made him so strong. And wiser than before. Huh, come to think of it, he'd been fighting with Zero as well. That must have been quite the life-changing experience.

He'd be working with Heero again. He'd be feeling that admiration/rivalry, following in Heero's footsteps, fighting back to back, challenging each other and becoming both the better for it. He'd missed that. A lot. He thought...he thought that Heero had too. Heero must have seen the same future he had in Zero, realized that they would need to fight together if they wanted a chance of winning against both the massive armies gathering to bring about Armageddon.

A last flicker of anger burned in Wufei's mind as he felt the way Heero had manipulated him into joining the others. But it passed and Wufei felt something heavy fall from his shoulders. He wasn't giving in to Heero; he was winning the fight against himself. He was finally moving beyond the clouds of doubt and self-loathing that had shrouded his mind. He had decided alone how he was going to live his life and he'd chosen his death. And in both, he'd be accompanied by strong, honorable warriors.

Really, Nataku, he thought as Zero maneuvered back into the shuttle and he caught sight of his Gundam, really, what more could we possibly ask for?

 

 

Wufei's fists struck air. Again. He didn't waste his breath in a snarl, but used the low gravity to hurl himself forward and flip around.

This time it was his foot that scythed the empty spot where his target had been.

Wufei spun on his axis and his backhand nearly connected, but the flexible waist bent back and knuckles only brushed cloth.

Wufei straightened and he crossed his arms. "Barton, do you call this sparring?"

Green eyes dropped to Wufei's fists. "No, survival," Trowa said calmly. Hands still in his pockets, he took another lazy step back. He'd made his evasions look ridiculously easy, as if he were dancing in the low gravity of Peacemillion.

Wufei rolled his eyes and took up an attack stance again. "I won't hurt you. Much. Not if you parry." He ignored Duo's snort behind him. "I thought you wanted a workout."

"I'm getting it," Trowa said, shaking his head to loosen a few hairs from his brow. Wufei was gratified to see that he was sweating a little bit despite his apparently easy evasions.

Trowa had taken another step back and he was now too close to the balustrade that separated the large mezzanine from the drop to the workroom floor beyond. Wufei suppressed a smile and attacked, knowing his opponent wouldn't be able to dodge him this time, backed up against cold metal.

His fist struck air again. Wufei gasped and looked up, in time to see Trowa end his graceful back flip with a handstand on the balustrade. A shove of strong arms sent the young man rising in the low gravity to tumble against the ceiling; he pushed off sideways and landed almost casually on the arm of a repair mecha in the workshop a few feet away from the mezzanine.

Behind Wufei, Quatre choked on his protein drink and Duo whistled.

Wufei put his fists on his hips and glared up at the acrobat, trying not to show he'd been rather impressed at the evasion. "Can I ask why you're not even bothering to fight back, Barton?"

"Because he's got his memory back now," Duo crowed behind Wufei's back. "And he remembers that you could knock Heero on his back one times out of two. He might have had amnesia, but Tro was never _dumb_!"

Wufei shot a scowl back at the two-penny gallery. Duo had set up a card-table in mezzanine where they took their breaks when they weren't working on their Gundams. Or fighting. They'd been doing a lot of both these past two weeks, and they were all feeling the tension. Duo and Quatre's card game had never gotten off the ground, they kept losing track of whose turn it was. They'd apparently welcomed the distraction when Duo had suggested Wufei and Trowa have a match.

It was a toss-up which part of the staggered attack on Libra was the hardest on them. The constant grind of wave upon wave of dolls that Zechs had launched at them to wear them down had been beyond draining. In fact Zechs' plans might have succeeded without Quatre's brilliant tactics that had given them the upper hand at the eleventh hour. The problem was, Peacemillion had been damaged and they'd lost their prey. They were now hobbling after Libra on its course to Earth and a final conflagration. 

Now their enemy was tension, the hopelessness of not being able to attack and finish Libra, and the long, draining wait between MD attacks which almost came as a relief.

Wufei was finding it almost as frustrating to pin down Trowa. "Barton, if I were a real enemy, would you spend your time dodging and dancing about like this?" he snapped.

Trowa seemed to consider the question for one second and then Wufei was looking down the barrel of the man's gun.

"No," Trowa said quietly.

Wufei nodded gently. Good answer. He ignored Quatre's sharp protest behind him and tensed his muscles as discreetly as he could, ready to launch himself in a spin that would hurl him across the empty space between the mezzanine and the mecha while dodging a pretend shot. Before he could attack though, Trowa put up his weapon, then holstered it, and rejoined him with a graceful leap and twist, landing on the floor with his hands back in his pockets.

Wufei had politely taken two steps back to allow him room to land. He now dropped into an attack stance. "You ready to give me a target this time?" he sneered.

"Yes," Trowa said, but he was walking around Wufei towards the card table. "I doubt I'd be much of a challenge for you, though, so I'll let Yuy take over."

Wufei straightened up and turned in the direction of Trowa's nod. Heero had come in, hair still damp from his shower. He was looking at the people in the mezzanine, analyzing their poses, the scene he'd interrupted. Finally his eyes caught and held Wufei's own.

Wufei felt a faint crackle of electricity run down his spine. Heero's eyes were challenging but Wing's pilot didn't have sparring in mind.

That'd work too, Wufei thought.

"Hey, where ya goin'?" Duo said as Wufei walked towards the door. Heero had already disappeared. "If you're going to beat the crap out of each other, can't I at least watch?"

"No," Heero said from the hallway. Wufei didn't even bother answering, he closed the door on Duo's complaints and Quatre's stern warning not to injure each other.

The last few weeks existed like in island in Wufei's life. He had no more doubts, no torturous failings to beat himself with. He'd left them all out in space with the shattered remnants of the virgos. He was living his life like a blade on its final downward cut. At the end of the sword's strike was death, for his enemies and for himself, but while the cold steel swung like an unstoppable force, nothing could slow him down or make him waver. He wanted some relief from the nagging tension and momentary boredo,m and his partner's suggestion was as good as another. At one time he'd have hesitated and made Heero fight him for it, to prove to himself he didn't need this release, wasn't subject to this weakness. At one time, he'd have been worried that the others would guess that sparring hardly required the participants to isolate themselves. At one time he'd have worried about a lot of things.

Amazing what the foreknowledge of your own death can do to clear your mind. He followed Heero without any hesitation or afterthought, beyond wondering what they would get up to this time. Their arrangement had been resumed quietly and without any question, as if it were merely another of the conveniences Peacemillion offered. The punishing rhythm of fighting had left them little time for anything involved. It had been savage dry humps in Wing's cabin or the munitions depot or wherever they could have a few uninterrupted minutes.

The attacks were less frequent now, but they'd been busy helping with Peacemillion's repairs, so time was still a precious commodity. Wufei cut short speculation as Heero, a few feet in front of him, turned down a corridor and opened one of the doors at random.

The likeable thing about Peacemillion was that it had a lot of small, out of the way, unused bunk rooms. With locks on the door.

Wufei looked around the small space. It contained a solid metal bed with a foam mattress covered by a brown, rough-woven cover, a chair, a small bedside tablet bolted into the wall, and a set of drawers and nothing else.

"I take it sparring wasn't what you had in mind," Wufei asked ironically, just to see what Heero would say.

"Hn." Heero locked the door behind them. Good answer, Wufei thought with a small, savage smile. I'm getting quite a few of those today.

His smile faltered when Heero neared the bed and tossed a tube on the bedside tablet before bending to untie his boots. It wasn't the burn cream this time, but Wufei didn't think it was toothpaste either.

"Oh, you want to-" Wufei lost a good part of his enthusiasm. It wasn't that he minded what they'd done in Italy; in fact he'd rather hoped for another occasion, where this time he might actually try to enjoy it. It was annoying that he'd had sex and that the thing he remembered the most about it was the look of the wallpaper, the eyes of a painted saint, the feel of the comforter under his knees and cheek, and an overwhelming confusion and resentful embarrassment. Yes, this needed to be addressed but...not today. The match with Trowa had warmed him up, he didn't want to be passive again. Having Heero screw him and then jerking him off would probably be relaxing, but he wanted more than that. Right now he'd prefer to spar.

Heero had straightened, dropping his half undone laces, and was looking at him quizzically through his bangs. Wufei shrugged, knowing he'd be expressing his reluctance. Heero seemed to understand his silent protest and took two steps across the room until he was near Wufei. He didn't grab him though, or kiss him. He just leaned over till his breath brushed the caramel-colored skin below Wufei's ear and murmured: "This is 'next time'."

Next time? Wufei was distracted by the proximity of the other body, triggering his reflexes at the same time it excited him. What next time?

Oh.

"Unless you don't want to. We can have a match instead." Heero tried to take a step towards the door but Wufei's hand was flat against his chest as he passed him, stopping his progress.

"What did you scrounge this time?" Wufei asked casually, tilting a chin to the tube on the stand. The hand holding Heero back from the door was as firm as rock, though Wing's pilot was pushing against it as if testing his resolve.

"It's actual lubricant. I found it in Peacemillion's dispensary."

"Really? It'd be a pity to let your effort go to waste then."

"Sure?" The face near his was openly taunting him.

"Certain," Wufei said, straightening his arm and hurtling Heero back towards the bed. The other pilot managed to catch his balance with his knees against the metal frame, but then Wufei's weight landed on him and they went down in a screech of metal.

The initial blaze of fury faded from Heero's eyes, and he glared up at Wufei instead of retaliating.

"So do you want to fuck me or spar, Chang? Make up your mind."

"It's quite made up." Wufei rolled them both over twice to get them both fully on the bed, and crushed Heero's lips with his.

There was no more embarrassment, hesitation, misplaced sense of propriety or reserve. Only two young bodies with the blood pounding through them. They would be dead soon. They would take their enemies with them. They would paint the heavens in the colors of fire and destruction. They would take what they wanted from life first even if they had to rip it out.

Blood howled like stormwinds in Wufei's ears, as Heero thrust his hand down into his pants and caressed him roughly. Pleasure shuddered up and down his spine, unexpected in intensity. The pounding in his ears and his body picked up the rhythm of those hard thrusts. This was as good as battle...

He grabbed Heero's hand, jerked it away and slammed it back into the bed. Blue eyes widened with surprise, burned with lust. With his other hand, Wufei gripped the edge of the tank top and pulled it up the supple body beneath his. Heero tore his hand away and squirmed out of the top.

"Take off the shorts," Wufei growled as he started ripping his own clothes off. He didn't think he could be trusted to remove the tight spandex from that awkward bulge it covered without hurting his partner. There was a tense ten seconds of rustling and thumping as clothes and shoes were tossed to the ground, then the metal bed frame screeched in surprise as two bodies collided and tangled on the old cover.

Heero bit into Wufei’s skin, just above the right nipple. A stab of unadulterated sensual pleasure made Wufei choke. Then Heero twisted and felt hurriedly at the side of the bed. Wufei found himself torn from the neck he was nipping; a pulse was hammering sensuously beneath his tongue, his hand, shameless as an animal, was curling roughly around Heero's cock. Something was thrust into his other hand and he stared at it blindly for a few seconds before recognizing the tube of lubricant.

"You have to prepare me for penetration," Heero said, voice still cool even though he was panting. "You have to-"

"I know," Wufei snarled. "I did the research." Over a month ago, before he left earth. He'd been embarrassed, scrolling through the information with a distasteful scowl on his face, glancing defensively over his shoulder. Foolish. All his hesitations, his little doubts and his virgin embarrassment were small, pathetic little rag-blown specks against the hurricane that had already engulfed his past, his self-image, his failures, his losses and his upcoming death.

He carelessly spread some of the transparent gel onto his fingers with one swipe, then, as Heero opened his mouth to add something - probably more instructions - crushed the parted lips with his own. His fingers felt blindly for Heero's entrance. Just one to start with, he remembered at the last second. Wufei's other hand grabbed Heero's and slammed it back down again, over the teen's head into the mattress. It stayed limp with surprise for a second then tensed as Wufei's finger plunged in without hesitation. The arm strained slowly, dangerously against his, his own muscles shifted to counter the movement. Conscious thought had been blown out with the rest of the petty concerns, but their bodies wanted this; the play of muscles, the striving, the confrontation, the counterpoint of violence. Heero's other hand fastened onto his shoulder with a grip that strangled Wufei's last worries; if he did anything wrong or hurt Heero, he'd find himself thrown off the bed and probably into next week as well. Wufei grinned fiercely and went back to chewing on the lifebeat in Heero's neck, feeling there the excitement that wasn't so apparent in Heero's face and eyes. He rubbed himself against the firm muscles of his partner's thighs, and listened with interest to the wild breathing next to his ear as his finger probed.

Words flashed through his mind and were quickly washed away by the flow of blood, drowned out by the hammering of his pulse. Stretch, prostate, scissoring motion, whatever. Heero was tougher than Gundanium, was highly resistant to pain, and was as impatient as he was if the way he was squirming down on Wufei's finger was any indication. Any second now they might be under attack again and didn't have too much time to lose. Wufei twisted his fingers and slipped in a second digit. Heero bucked against him a bit The pulse under Wufei's mouth rang like a hammer then evened out at a quicker pace yet. The legs he couldn't even remember shoving apart were reaching down and rubbing sensuously against his own bare thighs.

Wufei removed his fingers, rubbed them against each other to spread the lube a bit more evenly. He'd not really gelled up the third finger in his haste. Heero snarled something near his ear - in Japanese, Wufei noted with amusement in the tiny corner of his brain that could still think, although he didn't have enough free brain- cells left to translate. The words were cut off as Wufei slipped his fingers back in again. The tight ring of muscles was feeling a lot looser now, though there was still a lot of tension, making his first few thrusts hard. He should be worried about hurting Heero. He wasn't. Heero's words disappeared in a hiss and shudders ran through the body beneath Wufei's. Heero's hand left his shoulder and grabbed him by the back of the neck, pressing Wufei's mouth back down to the wild beat in the throat - concentrating on what his fingers were doing he'd leaned away, his breath hissing in and out and tickling the skin an inch from his lips. A rough thumb started rubbing the base of Wufei's neck in a slow, hard, totally unconscious movement.

Heero's head jerked back and a gasp made Wufei glance up blindly. The hand on his neck convulsed. From the corner of his eye he saw Heero's lips moved, blue eyes nailed to the ceiling in a glaze of surprise.

What-? Oh yeah, prostate, sweet spot, something like that, stimulation, pleasurable - the words he'd read on the screen were wind-blown leaves flashing before his mind's eye without letting themselves be caught. He remembered Heero hitting that spot. Damn, what had his fingers been doing? His mind had been centering on his aching erection and wondering when Heero would be ready for the next step, and how Wufei would know when he was. He twisted his fingers again. He didn't recall feeling anything special; it was all warmth, slick inner skin and pressure on his fingers, he hadn't felt- damn it he wasn't a doctor, he didn't know - 

Heero choked and the hand on Wufei's neck threatened to break it but he hadn't felt anything special there either. His fingers tried to regain their prior position, but with Heero squirming and everything melting into a mess of sensations, he couldn’t focus. Heero growled in something like frustration an inch from his ear. Wufei realized he was staring blindly at a grayish foam pillow and tried to lift his head to look at his partner, but the hand on his neck didn't give him an inch. Their other arms were still wrestling against the mattress, forcing Wufei to pin Heero's body down with his own just to stay balanced. Wiry muscles writhed beneath his chest, his torso, so erotic and alive it took his breath away.

The pressure on his neck disappeared and the arm Wufei thought he was pinning down lifted him bodily with sickening ease. "Ready," Heero grunted. "I'm ready. Go on!"

Wufei grabbed the slender hips - found his voice for a few precious seconds: "Do you want to turn around or-"

"This is fine!" Strong hands fastened on his shoulders. "Lube!" Heero snapped.

Wufei dragged his attention away from his erection and Heero's ass. Lube? Heero said he was ready, what-? Oh, lube, yes. Damn it where had the tube gone?! He couldn't even remember dropping the damn thing. Mandarin curses punctuated his ragged breathing as he glanced around wildly.

Heero bent supply at the waist - his legs still tangled with Wufei's - and scrabbled at a fold in the rumpled cover. He thrust the tube at Wufei with a reprimanding scowl which Wufei ignored, fumbling with the cap, his slick fingers making it hard to open. An impatient squeeze emptied out way too much of the tube into his palm. He swore again, half-screwed on the cap in two quick movements.

"Do we need this for anything else?" he panted, holding up the tube in a hand that was shaking. He'd forgotten the rest of the research at this point.

"Wh-what?" Heero's eyes focused, lighted on the tube. His face was flushed and his hair tousled. "No!"

"Good." Wufei hurled it across the room with some satisfaction at the pointless violent gesture, and smiled coldly as it hit the door then the floor with a small plunk. He quickly spread the gel over his erection. The feel of his slick fingers, the cold of the gel, the sight of the twitching flesh all collided in his mind and sent a hot ball of need shooting straight back to his groin. He lay back down on the wiry body, felt hands grip his shoulders again. Senses narrowing he barely felt himself lean an arm into the mattress for balance, the other hand on his erection guiding it blindly into Heero. Breath exploded from him at the first push; harder than he'd thought. He was dimly aware that Heero had tensed beneath him. He was more aware of Heero's hands though, because one of them was threatening to break his collarbone. But he still pushed again, against the pressure, despite the squeezing of his flesh. It became a bit easier, and in fits and starts he managed to fit in. The hands were leaving bruises on his shoulders, a reminder he wasn't by himself in this. He tried to focus on Heero's face. It was shut with a scowl, eyes turned inward in concentration. Wufei couldn't tell if his expression was one of pain or pleasure. Wufei was still for a few seconds, trying to convince himself he would be able to move. A little piece of advice about letting the other man adjust flitted through his mind as well and held him still for a few seconds more just as he was about to go ahead and try.

He dropped the hand he wasn't using for support to Heero's hip, to pin him down, and pulled back, young muscles arching and straining. Heero's pants hitched and caught then resumed, the hands on his shoulders loosened their death grip slightly. He moved inward again-

Oh... yes...

He moved out and thrust again, desperately trying to recapture that exquisite pull and pressure that had teased every pleasure center in his body.

Oh-... hands wouldn't do much for him-... after this-...

His world narrowed and focused on that motion, that friction plunging him into waves of sensation, crashing into him, stronger and stronger, higher and higher.

Something intruded - barely - as Heero's hand dropped from his shoulder to poke him in the side, worm between their bodies. Wufei arched away from the distraction - and a rainbow of sensations hit him as Heero cried out and tightened around him, just as he was thrusting in. Wufei choked at the increase in pressure, pleasure, everything. He thrust again, but the muscles had relaxed slightly, not that it wasn't good anyway. He blinked, something stinging his eye. Sweat. His vision cleared a bit, he was arched away from the body shuddering and panting beneath his own, and Heero's hand was gripping his erection, slick and red. Wufei stared, fascinated, as his own body continued plunging into Heero's, hunting after every wisp of pleasure it could drag from the tightness and warmth. Heero was shuddering, and every shift in stance spoke of his own rush, his own need to catch every fraction of sensation he could. Wufei groaned. The sight was bypassing his mind - which had pretty much shut down anyway - and hammering directly into his more primal responses, urging him along with the sensations from his groin to move faster, harder, go further and get more more more.

Time stretched and hardened like streams of toffee. Wufei couldn't say how long he'd been driving into the warmth beneath him, probably not long at all, but every time he thought to linger in the pleasure, Heero would gasp and tighten around him again and hurl him up to a new level. He'd try to cling to that, but then his own stance shifted as his muscles clenched, and the change of position brought him even higher, and he was racing forward towards the crest of the wave, unable to resist the inevitable climb upward-

The wave slammed into him, pounding him into his component atoms, orbiting around the release he was pumping out into the shivering warmth around him.

His ragged breathing was ringing in his head like a bell, he'd sunk down against his supporting arm and was lying against the hot body beneath his, twisted a bit to one side to avoid crushing it. A hiss - it seemed to come from a long distance away. Wufei's warm pillow jerked and tensed, jolting his eyes open. The muscles surrounding his cock tightened wildly and Wufei groaned, overly sensitive flesh complaining at having even more pleasure inflicted upon it. He half-heartedly tried to pull away, but Heero's legs were locked around his upper thighs, holding him in place. A rich, organic smell prickled his nose, and he became aware of the scent of Heero's sweat, his skin, his hair, the way he panted, his chest shuddering beneath Wufei. A puddle of warm wetness where their skin met.

The beep of communicators.

They'd beeped just before, he realized, but it had been at the edge of his awareness and so far back in the queue of things that were important to him at that point, the comms might just as well have been shot out the airlock for all they mattered.

Heero grunted and made a loose gesture with his arm, then groaned and rolled over a little. Wufei made an inhuman effort and pulled away, wincing with loss and pleasure at the little ripple of sensations this caused. He ignored Heero fishing around his spandex for the comm and flopped face down into the prickly brown cover, maneuvering to free his partner's leg.

He could hear Heero pause and regulate his breathing, after several attempts. Then the communicator was flipped open. "Yuy."

//Heero?// It was Quatre's voice, barely heard from Wufei's position face down on the bed and deep in post-coital coma. //We have something up on radar. Could be the next wave of attacks.// Quatre sounded tense, but also excited. He'd been bored too, Wufei remembered.

"How long?" Heero asked, voice distracted. Wufei turned his head the other way and looked at his partner seated on the side of the bed. Heero had one hand holding the comm, the other was using a corner of the blanket to clean up his stomach.

//About thirty minutes away. Do you know where Wufei is? I tried calling him too.//

"Yes, he's around here somewhere." Heero glanced back at him and gave the minute smirk which was his equivalent of a smile. "He's...meditating."

Wufei closed his eyes and extracted one of his hands from beneath his body to give Heero the finger, which he thought was ample enough a response. Heero snorted, the noise covering Quatre's next question.

"Yes, I'll get him, we'll be there ASAP." He closed the comm. without waiting for any further question, stood up slowly and stretched, yawned. Wufei's eyes twitched open instinctively at the shift of weight off the bed. He found his gaze lingering over the strong back, the firm buttocks. Then his mind slowly started to drag itself back into the real world.

"You okay?" he asked abruptly, his warrior instincts tallying up the possible consequences of their wild ride.

Heero seemed to consider the question, eyes turned inward. "Yes. Mild soreness, but nothing that will impact my performance."

"Good." Apparently he'd managed to do it right...although Heero's above-average tolerance to pain might have more to do with it than Wufei's inexperienced and hasty preparation. Wufei used the cover to wipe off lube and semen absently, still watching, fascinated, as his partner started getting dressed with quick, fluid movements.

His own comm hadn't beeped again, apparently Quatre had bought Heero's 'meditation' excuse.

'That was some meditation!' the annoying little inner voice crowed, still with a gutter-snipe twang to it. 'Think Quatre will continue to buy it when he sees what state you're both in?'

Wufei muttered a curse. Heero turned towards him, pulling down his tank top, a questioning look in his eyes.

"Better tell the others we were sparring, in case they wonder about _that_." Wufei grumbled as he pointed to the bright red blotches on Heero's neck. Heero felt the spot, scowled. His own eyes flicked over Wufei who quickly waved a hand. "I'll drop by my quarters and pick up my jacket," he said, before Heero had a chance to point out the state of his bruised shoulders.

"That will do. We'll be more careful next time," Heero added absently as he bent to tie his boots.

"Next time?" Wufei pulled on his top with one swift movement. "Do you think it's likely we'll have time to do this again before things come to a head?"

Heero paused, thinking. "The frequency of attacks is going to increase exponentially the closer we get to Libra. And Zechs will undoubtedly confront me with Epyon soon. So...no, probably not." His voice was indifferent.

"That's what I thought," Wufei grunted, tightening his belt and walking to the door. "Let's go see if Marquise managed to find us some serious opposition this time."

"Chang."

He turned towards Heero who was following him.

Wing's pilot eyes were hard, already burning with the heat of battle, and the smile on the lips was feral. Wufei found that gaze focused on him for a few seconds.

"Don't die easy."

Wufei snorted, returned the hard smile. "I have a score to settle first. Just get Zechs out of my way, Yuy, that's all I ask."

"Hai." Heero preceded him out the door. Wufei took one last look at the small room, wondering if they should do something with the soiled and rumpled bed cover. Since Peacemillion itself had a good chance of being reduced to scrap metal in the coming days, he needn't bother. He stared at the bed, glanced at the tube of lube near his feet.

Felt a new pulse starting in his veins, battle fever rising.

Neither he nor Heero, nor any of the others, were complaining that they were sixteen and about to die. Everyone died. He closed the door to the room behind him and stepped towards battle. This...this was the way to go, a path worthy of them. He lengthened his stride and fell in step with Heero as they headed towards the command deck side by side.


	10. Destructive Ways

Tears cannot put out a fire.  
\--- Chinese proverb

99822.

It was amazing how life's greatest tragedies could often be summarized in a few words, distilling the essence of the pain.

My wife died in my arms.

I was too weak to avenge her.

99822.

Wufei focused on the wire he was tugging, made sure the laptop was still sending the counter-order to the tamper device. 99822.

_You only fight for your ego, Treize! How many have died because of you?!_

_As of yesterday, 99822. Lady, how many dead today?... Ah... please give me their names later..._

Why...

Why had Treize done that to him? Was this some kind of sick revenge? To make Wufei understand just what kind of man - what kind of great man - great in a way... It would be nice if it had been for revenge, because that would, in a measure, tarnish his image.

But Wufei didn't think that he rated high enough in Treize's schemes to merit revenge. He was beginning to realize just how little he had mattered at all.

99822 and one broken dragon.

_...My eternal friend..._

Was that some kind of recognition to a fellow warrior? Thanks to Treize's executioner? Or just one last head-game that would amuse the Machiavellian bastard beyond the grave?

Did it matter?

99822 dead, not counting the soldiers who had fallen in the final hours of the Last War. That's how people were calling it now; overly optimistically in Wufei's view. The scholar had studied the history of many other 'Wars to end all wars', which had claimed a great many more dead than that one. And ten, twenty or a hundred years later, 99822 or more men and women died to fulfill the ambitions of a man who wanted to shape history to his liking.

Unlike most of those dictators, Treize had known - and visibly cared - about this number. That had hurt Wufei in a way he couldn't even fully quantify.

But the fact remained that, however much Treize felt those deaths, he had caused them. 99822 was just a number; you had to multiply it by one man's hopes, fears, dreams, ambitions, petty sins and desires, his family, his friends, his pets, his favorite food, his hobbies, his place in the world, to grasp the full extent of that tragedy. And Treize had, willingly, caused these thousands of finalities for his own ends. Knowing the full extent of his sin. As if knowing could somehow justify it.

Wufei's eyes were two black, blind pits as his fingers moved quickly on auto-pilot.

How many people have I killed?

Does not knowing this make me better or worse than him?

What the _hell am I doing?!_

Wufei froze just as he was about to plunge the wires into the detonation device and realized he no longer knew which ones were from the laptop and which were from the cascade trigger.

...Oh good job, Chang. What a brilliant move. Daydreaming while you're wiring enough explosives to spread a Gundam over three city blocks.

Might save the world a lot of trouble.

But I'm not sure it deserves such consideration.

He shook his head, carefully followed the leads back to their ports. He had been about to plug in the right ones, after all. Then he concentrated until the last device was calibrated and reset on the fuel tank.

Then he rested his forehead against the cold Gundanium and let his hands tremble for a little while.

Why was he doing this? This was the second time he'd checked and rewired and improved Nataku's self-destruct device, remembering how Duo's had failed when it mattered. But he shouldn't need it, should he? The war was over. No one was asking him to blow himself up anymore. So why-... ?

Because he felt as weak and uncertain as he had during those weeks of defeat after his first encounter with Treize, and he wasn't even sure he could defend Nataku any longer. He needed to insure that if something happened, the mecha would not fall into the wrong hands.

Now he just had to figure out who the wrong hands were.

And what should he do with himself in the meantime? He'd had some...interesting offers. Some more interesting than others. He couldn't seem to care about any of them. It was as if he had been the one who died; a ghost had no future, only a past.

Damn, I wasn't expecting to win...Why am I still alive?

_"I can't kill one who understands me."_

Bastard.

99822.

Why hesitate to kill one more?

Wufei suddenly punched the metal just to feel the pain slam through his fist. Enough. He had to go over the security details of the hangar now. And make sure no innocent bystander could accidentally wander in here to-

His ears pricked. The echoes in the hangar were treacherous, he had heard nothing but the occasional creak of metal. It was his warrior's senses that told him he had missed the noise of someone creeping up on him.

Oh good! Wufei smiled fiercely at the metal before him as he idly picked up a wrench. He could take these clowns down with his bare hands, but he had warned them last time. This time he'd hear some bones crunch. This would steady his mood for a little while at least. He stood up casually, pretending to put away a few instruments. When his senses told him the intruders were near the control room and he was temporarily out of their sight, he darted sideways, threw himself from the repair platform, leapt as silently as he could from its cabin to the pile of empty fuel drums to the ground and ran the thirty meters separating Nataku from the steel walls of the small control bunker, stranded like an abandoned lunchbox in the huge hangar.

He steadied his breathing, put the wrench behind his back and stepped out to meet his guests. He'd let them attack first, if that was their plan. Maybe he'd even listen to them some more, though he'd made his conditions clear last time. He didn't want to deal with goons and he didn't want to go anywhere. If this mysterious leader wanted to talk to him, then it was up to him to come here -

It wasn't several muscle men walking stealthily. It was only one, naturally-quiet young man who was taking no particular precautions at all.

Wufei was speechless. This he hadn't been expecting.

"Your security is lax," Heero said with his usual charm and manners.

Wufei put down the wrench - somewhat reluctantly - and shrugged coldly. "It's only a preliminary system. I haven't been here long." And how the hell did you find me?

Heero looked around. He didn't seem impressed. Wufei had done his best. There weren't that many places you could hide a Gundam on a colony; you couldn't stick it in your backyard, cover it with a tarp and tell the neighbors it was an ornamental gazebo under construction. He'd moved twice in the last week before finding this hole. It was perfect, he'd thought. An old MS development base, deserted now, nobody around for a mile. The hangar had been the engine testing area. The wind tunnel had been dismantled, but the hangar was heavily reinforced and shielded, which hid his Gundam from scanners and casual searches. And it would protect the colony from damage if he was careless with his explosives.

"It's not a very secure location," Heero commented, with a glance upward as if the ceiling had been removed and he could see the curve of the colony above their heads, with its buildings and factories and inhabitants all looking down upon the Gundam in their midst.

"Where's Wing?" Wufei asked tightly, already annoyed.

"I hid it on an abandoned satellite. With full protective measures," Heero added.

"Well I want Nataku close by," Wufei countered sharply. "What are you doing here, Yuy?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" Heero leaned against the steel wall of the reinforced bunker which used to house the wind-tunnel's controls.

"How the hell is that your business?"

Heero seemed to weigh his response to the words, and the aggression behind them.

Wufei knew where his anger was coming from. There had been a moment...Right after Treize had thrown himself on Wufei's weapon - _that was beautiful, Wufei_ \- there had been a moment when he could have ended it all. There were still plenty of opportunities, in the battleground that was Libra, to follow his enemy into the peace of oblivion. Hell, you couldn't fly three feet in a straight line without bumping into a mobile doll or an Earth Alliance suit, and they were all shooting at each other. The crossfire alone was deadly. He had been standing there, watching the last pieces of the Tallgeese shoot away, no gravity or atmosphere to dampen the inertia from the explosion that had sent them rocketing towards the four corners of the solar system. If he'd stayed put a few moments longer he would probably have been targeted by, well, one side or the other, it really didn't matter at that point.

And then he found his eyes focusing on a piece of metal that was not part of Tallgeese's rapid exodus from the battlefield, one that he knew well.

Wing's buster rifle.

The clench in his heart had reminded him it was still beating. Heero?! Had Wing been destroyed?!

Dragged back to life, the desperate words on the comm channels finally filtered through. And he'd reacted as a warrior, putting his confusion and grief aside to do his duty, one last time.

He still wasn't sure it had been the right thing to do.

Heero, of course, had probably never had any doubts.

Wufei resented him terribly for that.

And for not getting in touch after the so-called Last War, when Wufei had been staying on L5 with a few survivors of his clan.

And also for popping up now, when Wufei was hiding and trying to figure things out by himself.

Wufei turned away abruptly in dismissal. He knew his body language would probably give away the confusion and anger he was feeling. He didn't need his face to get in on the act and confirm it. He had nothing to say to Yuy now.

"Wait," Heero said firmly. Wufei's steps slowed but he didn't turn around. "Do you have any plans? For the future?"

Wufei put his hands on his hips. His eyes fixed on Nataku on the concrete apron of the test bay. He'd ran a check on most of the circuits, but the vernier rockets still needed going over if he wanted to get back into space. That was as far as his plans went and that was quite enough.

"The mobile dolls and MS that belonged to the Earth Alliance were destroyed when they returned to MO2." Heero's voice was brisk and neutral, as usual. "But most of the factions on earth did not join their suits to the war effort. There are still quite a few weapons around the colonies as well. There's still enough out there to cause trouble."

Including five Gundams, Wufei found himself thinking. That fact was of great interest to certain parties. Had the other pilots been approached as well? Well, not Heero, of course, unless these people were really stupid.

"Une is setting up an organization to watch for any groups that might try to collect these weapons. To make sure none -"

Wufei's laughter echoed through the hangar's empty space. It was a cold, jagged sound.

"Une?!" He turned to face Heero, who looked blank. "That's just rich. Treize's number one lackey, his most faithful devotee. Even she can't trust this so-called Peace he inflicted on us? She thinks she has to clamp down on it to maintain it?"

Heero glared, face suddenly rigid. "It's not an army, Chang, she's not going to force people to- it's just an agency to watch for potential trouble spots."

"Trouble spots? You always had such a way with words, Yuy. I thought we were all supposed to get along now. Why do we need this...agency?"

"It appears there are still some die-hard elements who might not accept Total Pacifism," Heero said softly, looking straight into Wufei's eyes. The L5 pilot had to swallow another fit of laughter.

"How uncooperative of them. And how inconvenient for you. But there's no need for an agency. Just sic Relena onto them." Why, why am I baiting him? "After a few hours of listening to her drivel, they'll either convert or blow their brains out." Why am I so angry with him?

Blue eyes were cold now, but Heero was still - of course! - perfectly in control of himself.

"When I heard you'd left your clan's new colony, I thought you might be at loose ends. I thought you might want to join us." Heero's voice was tight, but he was apparently going to ignore the direction the conversation was heading and try to wrench it back to its original purpose which was...what? Join them?

"Want to make sure I play nice, Yuy?"

Heero stared at him, then crossed his arms abruptly, in a move that was almost defensive. He turned his head slightly, his body language conceding. Barely. "I need a partner."

Partner?

The way his heart trembled was the same as when he'd seen that buster rifle floating through space, and realized he still had something pulling him forward.

For an instant he hung on the thread of that decision. But...not this time.

He turned abruptly and walked away. "Get the hell out of here," he snarled over his shoulder.

"Why are you still so-" Heero's voice was cold with anger. The rapid footsteps behind him were punching into Wufei's nerves like fists. "We won! The war is over!" A hand landed on his shoulder. "You defeated Treize-"

The hand spun him around and Wufei accompanied the movement, using momentum and every ounce of his balance and chi to land the blow. Heero's eyes were wide with shock, but his body had read the danger in time and he'd twisted instinctively to let the blow land on his shoulder. He staggered back, clutching his numbed arm.

" _I didn't defeat Treize! I just killed him!_ " Wufei's angry shout seemed to shove Heero back another step, into a defensive stance.

Wufei's fists were clenched and he stared at them, aching to punch his way out of this situation. "You're a fool, Yuy! We didn't win! He did! This is his peace, his idea, his plan!"

"It's peace!" Heero snapped. The shock had faded from his eyes and the cold fury of the soldier had replaced it. "It's the peace Relena advocated-"

"And you know what?! I still don't believe in it!" Wufei let his anger and his fists lead him into the attack.

Heero fell back another step and his arm rose to parry as his other hand shot out, to grab and immobilize. Wufei almost laughed again as he dodged into a crouch, spun on his axis and swept Heero's legs out from under him. Wing's pilot cursed and rolled back, giving himself more room, but Wufei wasn't having any of that. He followed through, pressing the advantage.

Heero growled, and retaliated with the ease and violence his opponent remembered all too well. Wufei dodged a sharp uppercut and kicked in the same motion. Blue eyes widened, but Heero's body knew what to do. Wufei staggered as one of Heero's forearms blocked the kick and the other hammered into his leg, thrusting it sideways. I taught him that, Wufei thought with fierce pride as he used the momentum Heero had given him to spin again and connect a vicious backhand to his opponent's already wounded shoulder. Heero didn't even flinch. The bastard was tougher than his Gundam. Wufei smiled fiercely and stepped forward to meet the hail of blows as Heero used his power and stamina to take back the advantage.

Muscles coiling slowly, Wufei took a step back. He rubbed his forearm, wondering if the bone was cracked, not caring if it was. The pain was lost in the rush. Heero mirrored his move, his stance aggressive.

Beautiful, Wufei thought. Heero's eyes were slits and the blue had darkened to the color of the deep sea. He was silent, face set, giving away nothing, but Wufei could read that powerful body and it was singing with the harmony of violence. The soldier was never more alive than in these moments. Wufei's heart beat the fierce tattoo of war drums knowing he was one of the rare people in Earth and Space to be able to fully bring this out in Heero Yuy.

"What's wrong, Yuy?" he whispered. "Aren't you supposed to stand down, tell me about peace, convince me not to fight?"

Heero's posture shifted, ready for the next attack, assuming this was a distraction.

"You won't. Because this is who we are. We are meant to fight. It's the only time we are complete." Wufei dropped his own stance a bit so that Heero would actually listen to what he had to say. He saw the blue eyes widen as his words penetrated.

"We are soldiers," Heero acknowledged coldly. "But soldiers are now redundant. We can still be useful to-"

"Beat the swords into plowshares?" Wufei sneered. "People are even less malleable than Gundanium. You, Relena, Une, you're all blind fools. This will be the Last War for all of a year, if that. Then-"

"No." Heero's voice was tight, eyes blazed. "The people have accepted peace. They-"

Wufei's laughter interrupted him again. "Oh yes, the people. So traumatized, weren't they, when Une beamed your fight with Zechs across the Earth sphere. Such an ugly display. Yes, it didn't make for pretty television, did it.

"It's not going to change anything, Yuy. They'll get over the shock soon enough. You can hunt down the suits and artillery to your heart's content! They'll use guns, Molotov cocktails, kitchen knifes, their fists if they have to, but sooner or later we'll be at war again. Treize was wrong! Just showing them what war is like won't change them! There's only one way they'll understand! It's if they have to go through the same hell we did! That's the only way they'll _earn_ it!" There, he'd said it; the idea that had been gnawing at him and tempting him and tormenting him, in one guise or another, since Treize's death. He could barely acknowledge it until now.

"And how many people will have to die this time?" Heero asked softly.

99822-...

"As many as it takes!" Wufei shouted and threw himself forward, fist swinging down like a hammer.

"You could be right-" Heero whispered.

Wufei's punch connected _hard_. He staggered in surprise. Watched Heero's body hit the ground limply five feet away.

He'd- Heero had dropped his guard! He'd not even tried to parry!

"Heero?!"

He'd just let Wufei's fist smash into him. Wufei found himself taking a hesitant step towards the fallen man, hand outstretched. Then Heero stirred and Wufei fell back.

Heero shook his head, looking dazed. He was clutching his chest where the blow had landed, and he winced as he moved. Wufei could almost hear the grind of cracked or broken ribs.

"You could be right. In which case, I can tell you." Heero's voice was weak and his breath was uneven.

"T-tell me-... ?" Wufei stared, completely confused.

"How many it will take. If you are right, it will be all of them. They'll all have to die. Even her."

Her? Wufei felt an icy thread of pain and horror run down into his gut.

"Over and over again. Even the innocent." Heero's eyes were unfocused. "Even young girls can grow up and wield a weapon if they want to. She'll have to die. Again and again."

How- how could Heero know?! Wufei felt himself tremble. How had he found out about Meiran? Her name echoed through his mind. He hadn't thought much about her these days...

Heero's voice was a whisper lost in the screaming, howling thing Wufei’s soul had become. The soldier's words barely made sense.

"How many times, Chang? How many times will I have to kill her? How many dead bodies? I know I'm a soldier. A killer. That's why I had to join Une, have to believe in peace, otherwise I will have killed all those people for nothing. And they'll have deserved it. If that's true, I might as well terminate myself because nothing I can do will ever matter."

Wufei found himself looking back at Nataku. She stood, gleaming in the dim light from the hangar's dirty windows.

His wife had not deserved to die. She had fought, true. But she had warred for Justice, and he knew that once that had been achieved she would have put down her weapons and gladly returned to him in that field of flowers. She would still have been strong. She would still be Nataku. She didn't have to fight to prove it.

How many times would she have to die, if war broke out again?

Would his Gundam deliver the killing blow this time?

I don't think they deserve peace, Nataku, Wufei thought. He heard Heero stir behind him, stand up slowly, but he was lost, his thoughts spiraling into a vortex. They are weak. This peace was given to them, bought by the blood of the strong. I don't think they've earned it. They've not learned their lesson. But...but I will not become a new Treize in an attempt to teach them. They'll learn it on their own, or not. It's their choice. It has to be, or it's all meaningless.

Forgive me, Nataku. I am weak, and your strength tempts me. I won't go down that path. I'll find my own strength.

His fingers fumbled at the device, removing the securities numbly.

There probably will be another war. But mine is over. 

He heard Heero gasp as he raised the detonator and hit the button. An instant before the air solidified into pressure and light, something hard rammed into him and hurled him behind the far wall of the reinforced bunker.

His ears were ringing so badly it was as if the explosion was going on and on. His lungs and head ached at the sudden compression of the air around him. Around them. He realized Heero was lying next to him, with his hands over his head.

Wufei glanced around prudently. The bunker walls had protected them from the backlash of the explosion and pieces of Gundanium hurled at twenty thousand feet per second. The hangar doors had been ripped off and were resting twenty feet away, but the rest of the building looked fairly steady still. Or so he thought until he reluctantly crawled forward and poked his head around the edge of the bunker and realized the entire end of the hangar had been blown clear off. The ceiling would be weakened as a result. It was already a proof of the designer's ingenuity that the building was still standing at all.

He felt movement behind him and he turned, too quickly. His head swam and he stumbled. He sat and leaned against the bunker's walls. Heero had risen to his knees, hand pressed to his chest. He was shaking his head slightly as if to clear out the tinnitus.

Wufei's eyes flinched from a huge chunk of plate-armor, red enamel still clinging, embedded in a side of the hangar. From the angle, it might very well have scythed through the space he'd been standing if Heero hadn't dragged him behind cover. Then again maybe not, it was hard to tell. He tried not to think this was a piece of Nataku, while his heart ached.

"I should tell you," Heero said stiffly, his voice louder than usual. "If you were trying to self-destruct, that wasn't the most efficient way of going about it."

Self-... ? Right. It was nice of Heero to believe Wufei was actually thinking that far ahead when he hit that button.

"I know you speak from personal experience," Wufei grumbled, as Heero slowly got to his feet. "Don't worry, I'd do it efficiently."

"No you won't."

"What?" Wufei tore himself from his thoughts. Heero was scrutinizing him carefully.

"You won't self-destruct. You're stronger than he was."

Wufei stared at him for a long time, then he turned his head and shrugged.

Movement in front of him made him look back. Heero's hand was extended towards him. It reminded him of that time in the shed, their first time, after the sparring and the sex. He'd refused it without a second thought then. He didn't hesitate long now, using the wall instead to haul himself to his feet. Heero let the hand fall back, more slowly this time, but his eyes were steady and he didn't seem surprised.

Wufei, still leaning against the wall, turned the corner and took the full measure of the destruction. He could feel Heero move to his side, and sigh ever so slightly. Even the cold, efficient soldier must feel a pinch in the chest area at the destruction of one of their partners.

"I know this is probably not a good time-" Heero started with uncharacteristic diplomacy.

"There is a man."

" ...What?"

"I don't know his name, he's been quite coy about approaching me. But I dug up some information about one of his middlemen. Here." Wufei dug out the card from his pocket. His laptop was now blown to hell, along with his research, but he'd jotted some of it down. "This is the phone number they gave me to contact them. This - " He pointed to the name and address he'd scribbled down, as Heero took the card with a puzzled frown. "He's the man who hires people for them. He works at that address, it's a big company in the L3 cluster. I get the impression his boss is a big man there too."

Heero read the information carefully, probably memorizing it while he was at it. Then he glanced up, an eyebrow arched quizzically.

"They approached me with an offer to join them. With...Nataku. They didn't give me many details, but I have a feeling they're trying to form some kind of force."

Heero's eyes were on the card again and they were as cold as the vacuum of space. Then he looked up slowly.

Wufei knew what he was going to ask, and for an instant he was tempted. But, unlike Heero, he'd always been told to follow duty rather than feelings. In the void that his life had become, it gave him something to guide him. Now that revenge and the need to watch over Nataku were resolved, there was another obligation to focus on.

"Will you-"

"The information I gave you should be sufficient to determine who they are," Wufei said softly. "I...have duties to attend to."

"Your clan?"

"Yes. Several minor branches survived and they have regrouped. They want me to pursue my education. They have accepted that warriors are no longer needed." That's when he'd left. "They wish me to become an arbitrator, a politician, and direct our clan to fight for peace another way. They...may have the right path. It's my duty to follow it if I can." And maybe he could, now.

"Hn." Heero slipped the card into his jacket's pocket and glanced back at the mecha's remains. "I can take care of this for you, if you want."

Wufei cast a glance over the Gundanium scraps, the remains of sensitive circuitry, and the damaged but still salvageable weapons. "That might be a good idea. Thank you, Yuy."

Heero made a dismissive gesture and they turned towards the hole where the door had been.

"Yuy?"

Heero looked up from the number he was dialing on his cell.

"I...you honored me with your proposal," Wufei said carefully. "I'm not entirely convinced about this peace, but I wish you luck in maintaining it."

Heero shrugged. Luck was not something they counted on, Wufei remembered with a small flicker of amused recognition. His body spoke of resolve. There was no resentment towards Wufei in his stance. No regret either. Wufei felt he'd dropped below Heero's radar again. The man thought in straight lines, and Wufei was no longer his concern.

The steel soldier's mask unbent a fraction. "Find your peace, Chang. You'd better leave before the locals get here," Heero added as the faint sound of a siren trembled in the distance. "I'll deal with them."

Wufei nodded and moved towards his bike. He didn't look back as he gunned the motor and drove away from the remains of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It should be pretty obvious at this point, if I haven't said so before, that EW is not going to happen. Though in a way, it just did.


	11. The Long Quiet Road, Part I

A crane amongst chickens  
\--- Chinese saying

"Is this not satisfactory, Lord Chang?"

Wufei looked back at the older man in surprise. Then he realized how his silence could be misconstrued.

He turned and bowed slightly at the waist. "Apologies, honored uncle. It is more than satisfactory. It's..." Wufei glanced around as he straightened, "...in fact a bit big?"

Wai Law Chi didn't look at the apartment, he looked at Wufei.

"This is much smaller than your home back on A0206."

Wufei stared blindly at the painted wooden screen that broke the long rectangle of the main room, and tried to remember his childhood home. "I was in boarding schools since I was eight," he reminded his uncle absently.

"Ah yes. Well we can't have you sharing a dorm now." Wai chuckled at the thought.

The richly furnished apartment wasn't being measured up to a junior dorm in Wufei's mind. Nor to the succession of equally forgettable safe-houses, or the anonymous bunk room on Peacemillion. The room in the house he'd shared with Meiran's family during their brief marriage had been a guest room and felt like it. As long as he could remember, every place he'd been he'd felt in transition, in addition; except, perhaps, in Nataku's cabin, curled up in a sleeping bag surrounded by the faint hum and beep of monitors, the lights watching over him as he said a brief prayer to his ancestors' memorial stone and closed his eyes on the war to rest.

"The university is only a few minutes away," Wai continued. "Your father and your grandfather both lived here while they attended Zhejiang." It had been traditional to send the male heir of Wufei's side of the family to a Chinese University, to allow them to connect to their past with the Earth.

Wufei picked up a jade sculpture of a horse from a side table, felt its weight and the cold stone against his palm. In his mind’s eye, his father's face was pixelated and frozen in the pose from the single photograph Wufei possessed of him. Maybe his uncle would have other pictures of his father. Not likely though.

Wai was his closest living relative now, his mother's uncle. As the youngest son, Wai had married into a lesser branch of the loose set of families which formed Wufei's clan. Now that the two principal bloodlines were reduced to only one scion, there had been some reshuffling in the order of importance in the remaining lines. Wai, much to his surprise and dismay Wufei imagined, had come out as the new family elder. The sixty-year old was obviously not a politician; he was an engineer, a practical hard-headed man with an excellent reputation in civil engineering and not much diplomacy. He didn't seem terribly comfortable with being suddenly put in charge of the adolescent lord of his family. Wufei wasn't comfortable treating someone three times his age as a retainer, especially when his only memory of the man was from eleven years ago during a family reunion where Wai had picked him up, called him Xiao Chang, and said he looked like his mother when she was a child, probably in an effort to annoy Wufei's father.

Wufei wished he could have stayed in the colonies. Aside from being called Lord Chang, he'd not had any preferential treatment and he'd been able to do pretty much as he pleased. Wufei caught that thought and strangled it.

He'd accepted this duty, this path. He'd lost pretty much everything else in his life. His wife was dead. His home was gone. The war had abandoned him. His enemy had defaulted. Nataku was destroyed. But he still had this to do. As such, it would not occur to Wufei to not give himself entirely over to these duties. It wasn't in his nature to do things by halves.

He glanced around the apartment, trying to look approving rather than uncomfortable. It was big, particularly for one person. The large living area was over seven meters in length, from the spirit wall at the entrance to the fireplace at the other end. The walls were painted ocher, decorated with portraits, pictures and three red fans with the symbols of fortune, excellence and justice. The three narrow windows along one wall had traditional wooden screens on them, the regular latticework broken by the shape of the symbol of longevity in the center of each. The room was furnished with traditional furniture of old cherry wood, dragons and phoenixes embroidered on the upholstery. A discreet hallway led to a fully appointed kitchen, not that he really knew what to do with that. A bedroom and a study of more modern design, with a small but well-stocked library, rounded off the rich bachelor pad that had been in his family for over a hundred years. Wufei tossed his duffel down in a gesture to prove to his uncle - and himself - that this was indeed his new home, and just in time caught the strap and jerked the canvas bag back before it connected with the coffee table. The duffel contained a Luger, some ammo and a small set of tools barely cushioned by his spare clothes, he could imagine what that would do to the delicate wood and mother of pearl inlaid table top.

"This way, Lord Chang, you can put your things away in the bedroom."

Wai led the way. He was not much taller than Wufei, stocky, tough and durable with shrewd eyes. His face was heavily tanned, he spent a lot of his time on earth, designing and working on buildings sites. His hair was silver, cropped short, bristles standing out like small quills on the back of his skull. He showed the huge walk-in wardrobe to the soldier who had become the lord of his house. He took the duffel from Wufei with a smile and put it in the otherwise empty space, which promptly engulfed and belittled the rough, stained bag. Wufei added the laptop case, but it didn't help much.

"We'll have you settled in rapidly. Where is the rest of your luggage?"

Wufei sighed internally. The old man was doing as well as could be expected in the circumstances, but he hadn't entirely caught on yet...

"Don't worry, honored uncle, I'll manage the rest. Where's the university from here?"

"Three blocks down and across the main road to get to the gates. Ah, Lord Chang, I meant to ask you..." Wai took a piece of paper from a folder he carried. "As your guardian, the university has asked me to double check your schedule, make sure it's correct."

"What about it?" Wufei poked his head in the kitchen wondering if someone had thought to stock it. He wouldn't mind some tea. Or even some bottled water. After living in space most of his life, tap water on Earth just didn't taste right. Not enough recycling chemicals.

"Well...the courses you selected. The specializations, and the secondaries, added to all the tutorials...um, this timetable is brutal, Lord Chang." Wai was holding the schedule between his fingers as if it might explode.

Wufei glanced up from the - unfortunately empty - fridge. "The political studies curriculum is fairly intense. Although I was several years ahead of my age group in school, I'm still missing a few of the prerequisites. I have to catch up on a lot." He'd been surprised Zhejiang University, notoriously stringent in its entry requirements, had even accepted him. His clan had probably pulled some strings. He accepted that; the alternative was to rot in some high school with a bunch of children. He'd show everybody that he could earn the privilege his family's name had obtained for him.

"But you do realize that typically students do not pick all the courses in the curriculum, they normally leave out two or three."

"They're all worth studying to become a leader and arbitrator," Wufei said sharply as he closed the fridge and checked the ice-box.

"Well yes...I noticed you included an elective in Asian literature as well?"

Wufei paused in the act of opening a cupboard. "Is that a problem?"

"That is not part of the political studies curriculum." Wai sounded puzzled.

No. It was just what I wanted to do with my life back when I was fourteen, Wufei thought as he stared at some plates which would be better off in a museum's display case than a dishwasher. "I'll contact the university tomorrow and tell them to remove that course from my list of studies," he said quietly.

There was silence behind him. Wai was looking at him thoughtfully, though he dropped his gaze respectfully when Wufei turned and caught his eye.

"It is up to you, Lord Chang, but I think the chosen courses will already prove quite challenging."

"That's the idea," Wufei muttered as he left the kitchen.

Unfortunately the old man had excellent hearing for someone his age. "The idea, Lord Chang?"

"I get bored easily," Wufei said in tones of finality. He hesitated outside the kitchen, then unslung his sword from his belt, and put it on the sword stand above the house shrine near the spirit wall. He bowed to the memory of his ancestors, then went to check what kind of sheets to use with the antique canopied bed and if he'd have to go shopping for those as well.

 

 

Wufei picked the seat nearest the fire exit and sat down with a discreet glance around the auditorium. He'd timed his arrival two minutes before the course was due to start so he didn't have to mingle with the others. The big room was only half full, to his surprise. He'd been able to put at least five rows of empty seats on either side of him.

Absently he smoothed down his sleeve again. He kept doing a double take each time he caught sight of his arms clad in the rich red and black silk. But the colors of mourning would only elicit sympathy and unasked-for questions. Besides he had decided to leave the past behind him in more ways than one. He now represented his clan in their public face to the world and had to dress the part. The smooth tunic slid against his spine as he leaned back in the chair, and he missed the way the cloth would bunch slightly around the gun he no longer wore in his belt. He absently straightened the notebook, pen and books he'd set on the small desk, and felt like an impostor.

He kept a discreet eye on his surroundings. The clock above the door showed it to be 9:00 sharp. There were around fifty students in all. Some were talking in low voices, most were staring straight ahead. A few were reading. The big room was very quiet.

Wufei began to frown. Granted it had been a long time - a year and a half of hell - since he'd been in a classroom but there was something in the air that-

"Excuse me?"

He'd noted her approach, but hoped she'd pass him by if he ignored her. He turned slowly without a word.

"Erm, you don't have to sit all alone here, there's plenty of room on the other side of the classroom."

"I'm fine."

She looked a bit puzzled and slightly nervous even though she was probably two years his senior. She was dressed in a dark skirt and white blouse, western style, as if she were uncomfortable out of the school uniform she'd been used to before coming to university.

"I haven't seen you in class before. Are you new?"

"Yes." The school year had started three weeks ago, Wufei had missed it thanks to his self-doubts and hesitations. Fortunately the Zhejiang board of education had allowed for a late enrollment. "Isn't the class about to start?"

"Oh, Teacher Zhiang is very reliable. Always fifteen minutes late."

She didn't seem particularly discouraged by the curt answers or the strong hint in his question, she seemed to be trying to ask him something without actually being rude enough to question him.

"My name is Ju Mei. I'm from Beijing," she said carefully, as if this could be misinterpreted as an insult.

"Chang Wufei. Don't they have a university in Beijing?"

"Oh, ZJU is a much better institution," she said quickly, her eyes had flinched. "Erm, where did you say you came from?"

"I didn't."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"L5."

"Ah!" Her smile was warmer and she gestured towards the front of the auditorium near the door. "Well you should come and sit with us, then. There are a couple of other colonists down there, let me see if I remember-"

"I am fine where I am," he said, voice neutral. When she turned back to him in surprise, he held her gaze until she flushed and took a step back.

"I-I'm sorry. I-... " She stumbled back another step, bowing instinctively, then muttered, "Welcome to ZJU," before returning hastily to her seat.

Several people from the front of the auditorium had been staring at her and Wufei from the moment she had approached. He saw them ask a few questions in a low voice. The girl - Ju Mei, no last name, he made a note to check her against student enrollment data later - shrugged and sat down.

Wufei's gaze went from the front of the auditorium to the back. The soldier and strategist finally assembled a coherent picture to explain his sense of unease.

Nice peace you have there, Yuy. Well, at least they're not shooting at each other. Yet.

Students were sitting in distinct groups, with several empty seats between each. The students in front near the door were all seventeen or eighteen and had the bright, brittle, excited look of young people who had left home for the first time and for whom the novelty had not yet worn off. There was a smaller group to one side, near them but still distinct. Those students were on average older and their pose was almost aggressively relaxed. They sat front and center, claiming the room. At the back was another group, mostly young men from eighteen to late twenties, all sitting in pretty much the same stiff stance and looking straight ahead at the presentation screen.

What had everybody expected? The war had lasted in one form or another for over two decades. The alliance overtaking the nations of earth one by one, resistance movements opposing them, terrorism, retaliations, oppression, executions, counter strikes, bombardments, and finally the political and military turmoil of the last year. Now it was over and all sorts had returned to school. So if he had to take a guess: the loose-knit bunch of young people nearest the door were regular students, civilians. The small group near the front had been part of the opposition movement for which Sally Po had fought, the Chinese resistance against the Alliance's puppet, Bundt, and OZ. The group at the back were the discharged soldiers, either OZ or part of the forces of Bundt and his junta.

The girl had assumed he'd want to sit with the civilians. In theory Wufei belonged with the one-time rebels. But he probably went just as easily with his old enemy; an ex-soldier trying to catch and weave the threads of his life back into some semblance of a familiar pattern.

Yes, he was definitely better off sitting where he was. Out of it all and on no-one's side. It was where a Gundam pilot belonged.

He shook his head slightly as he remembered his words to Wai. The groups were now separate and intent on ignoring each other, but there was a hint of violence in the air like the taste of metal to the tap water in the apartment he kept thinking of as his safe-house.

He had a feeling attending university was not going to be boring at all.

By the end of the first day of observing all parties, Wufei had gone and checked. He'd been reassured to find that Zhejiang had discreet but very efficient metal detectors on every entrance to the grounds.

 

 

Wufei interrupted his katas as soon as he realized the door hadn't immediately closed again.

"There are no classes here," he said tightly.

"I know."

The man moved slowly through the small sports room, as nonthreatening as possible. He was tall, in his mid twenties, with the darker skin of the western provinces. His bearing was unconsciously military, and his hair was short and not particularly well kept, as if he'd still not gotten used to the absence of a helmet. His features were a bit crude, powerful, and he had a small scar across the bridge of his nose. His hands, relaxed unaggressively at his sides, were strong and had calluses; gun, not MS, Wufei judged. He was wearing jeans and a Chinese-style dark blue tunic, with a thick wristwatch, the kind that gave air-pressure and universal time. A simple metal medallion in lieu of dog tags around his neck. A casual observer would say he looked a bit brutish, but his eyes were sharp. Officer, OZ, probably Romefeller faction, Wufei guessed with the ease of practice that came from having fought and killed a great many of the man's peers.

"You look quite young up close. How old are you?" the man asked curiously as he closed in.

"What do you want?"

The man looked at him for a little while, weighing him. Wufei wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow and tried to encourage him to leave with a dead-eyed stare he'd learned from a certain L1 pilot. His punishing schedule of studies only left him a handful of free minutes to practice his katas, and he didn't feel like wasting any.

"My name is Ko Liwan." The man, visibly not discouraged, introduced himself with a small bow.

"Chang Wufei." He made the three short syllables as uninviting as possible.

"I just thought I'd warn you, Chang. It's not wise to provoke them."

"Provoke them?"

Ko made a gesture towards Wufei. "Your exercises. A bit too martial for times of peace. Tempers are already high enough against people with a military background."

There was the slightest question in that statement. Wufei had been under intense observation for the last two weeks since his late enrollment. His background had not been easy for the various factions to place, but on the balance of probability he'd apparently been slotted in with the Ozzies. Amusing.

"Thanks for the warning. I'd like to be alone now please."

"It's none of my business," Ko said slowly. "But the war is finished, and the sooner we stop thinking about fighting and factions, the better."

"You're right," Wufei said, backing away and turning back to his katas.

"Right in what I said, or the fact it's none of my business?" There was weary cynicism in Ko's voice.

"You choose," Wufei answered and returned to the practice of controlled violence.

"No one quite knows where to place you, Chang." The man continued oblivious and Wufei couldn't concentrate with a potential enemy at his back. "They're wondering whose side you were on."

"I thought we weren't supposed to be thinking about sides any more?" Wufei countered, facing the older man again.

"Hah! Well that's the theory. You said you're a colonist, but you bear yourself like a soldier and you left space...Whose side were you on, Chang? White Fang? One of OZ's recruits in space? Resistance? Alliance?"

"I was on nobody's side. Go away."

"Huh. That's an interesting and novel answer," Ko said with a sudden grin. "You know what everyone else says when I ask that question?"

"No."

"'The right side', of course."

Wufei couldn't help it, the snort of laughter slipped through the mask before he could quite stop it.

Ko gave him a smile that was both tired and bitterly amused, the smile of a soldier who had just wanted to lay down his weapons and get on with his life. His weapons had been taken away, but he'd found himself on a new battlefield all the same. He left without a further word and Wufei finished his katas without further interruptions.

 

 

"Hi Wufei. Don't worry, I won't sit down." Ju Mei's voice was slightly sardonic, but she'd apparently decided a few weeks back to adopt the young, hopelessly anti-social boy without family or friends in Hangzhou, and wasn't to be discouraged that easily.

Wufei, who didn't particularly want to be adopted by anyone, particularly Ju Mei and her clique, glowered at the interruption.

Behind Ju Mei and her unwavering smile, Li Pai glared right back at him. She was Ju Mei's best friend, also from Beijing, and visibly didn't approve of the ungrateful wretch who turned down all of her friend's efforts to socialize him and include him in some of the university's activities. On Ju Mei's other side, Gan Jiening, a colony ex-pat who never seemed bothered by anything, merely looked bored.

Ju Mei was one of the few who tried to put life into JZU's student body, using CPR if necessary. Her group had organized a few parties, some campus sports meetings, everything carefully arranged so that certain people didn't run into each other. Wufei thought Ju Mei would make an excellent social hostess, or possibly a peace-broker in a major war zone.

"So, Wufei, I was wondering-"

"No."

"But-"

"No. I have to study."

"You're always studying!" Ju Mei exclaimed, exasperated. "Don't you want to live a little?"

"I'll fit it into my calendar for after my master's degree," Wufei muttered and turned to the next page while taking another bite of his sandwich. He really could return to his apartment for lunch, it wasn't that far and he'd be undisturbed. But then he'd have to get his own meal ready. He'd been living on some form or other of take-out or rations since university started two months ago. After so long as a soldier, fresh food and domesticity just seemed like a sinful luxury, a waste of time he couldn't get used to.

He glared up from his book as he felt Ju Mei's lack of prompt departure after his snub. It was hard enough to get into economics. Some of it was interesting, the rest was so tedious he'd been tempted to go with his tutors' recommendations and drop it. But his clan needed someone with a head for financial realities as well as politics. He'd stick with it, he'd hammer away at it until he conquered it.

"You know, Wufei, if you never go out, you'll never meet any nice girls," Ju Mei said with a teasing smile. Wufei wondered just how rude he'd have to be to get rid of the pest.

"I don't think Chang's interested in girls."

Wufei had tracked Lun's approach. The various factions around the sparsely populated university were not structured enough to have leaders. Otherwise Lun Kai Bo would be one of them.

That first day impression had been wrong; most people, like Ko and Ju Mei, only wanted to study and get on with their life without fuss. But there were enough troublemakers on either side to make a fuss inevitable one day. School staff were constantly on the lookout for trouble, but were somewhat unsure how to handle the developing tensions. This was the first school year of the 'peace'. For a decade, JZU had been frequented by the children of highly placed members of government, the military or rich business men. Now it was open to all. Except, perhaps, to peace.

Wufei wasn't surprised. In fact a small part of him was bitterly amused; this proved his theory. This university was a microcosm of what was probably happening planet wide. Total pacifism? Last war? My ass. It's coming, Yuy. It's coming and you can remove as many weapons as you can find you will not be able to stop it.

"Well, Chang? You'll notice he's not denying it, Ju babe. You might as well give up!" Lun chuckled. He was a short man in his early twenties with burn scars across both his hands that spoke of a close miss from a shell, or an explosion in an MS cockpit. He had the natural charisma of a small-time leader, and, in Wufei's observation, no real interest in studying history he'd enrolled for.

"There wasn't anything to deny," Wufei said disinterestedly as he flipped a page. "You stated your opinion. It's your right to have one. It's my right to ignore it. Now go away."

The three girls tensed. A few other students stood up from a nearby table and left hastily.

Lun didn't seem bothered. "I see they've already taught you semantics in your political studies classes." Wufei's fingers tensed on the page. He forced himself to relax. This creature was beneath him. "So, I'll make it a question. You into guys, Chang?"

"Regretfully not, but I have a friend who is, I'll put in a good word for you." Wufei couldn't help himself. The mental image of this little rooster approaching Yuy and getting ripped limb from limb warmed his heart a little.

The silence turned ugly for a second, then Lun laughed. "You'll make a good politician, Chang." Once more Wufei strangled the temptation to leap up and retaliate more than verbally. It shouldn't be an insult. It would be true one day. "Well, Ju Mei, good luck finding a girl the right size for our Xiao Chang."

"I already have a date for the foreseeable future," Wufei snapped, lifting Fogherty's 'Economics of Interplanetary Resources'. "Now if you'll leave the two of us alone, I'd-"

The explosion brought him and half the students to their feet. The other half screamed and dived beneath the plastic lunch tables of the canteen.

"S-sorry." In the stunned, panting silence, the cook's voice sounded ludicrously loud. He was standing over the remains of a huge ten-gallon glass alembic of soy sauce, completely shattered. It had slipped from the lifter's clamp. Empty and sealed as it hit the tiles, it had sounded like a small detonation blowing out a window. Wufei realized he'd kicked his bench clear across to the wall behind him, and thrown himself in a crouch to the side, his hand reaching for a weapon he no longer wore. Lun's hand was similarly at his belt.

There was a whimper from the floor a few feet away. Ju Mei was frozen in shock, eyes huge in a bloodless face, but the pitiful noise jerked her like a puppet. She finally moved, cooing like a dove as she leaned over Li Pai, curled up shaking on the floor. Jiening stared down at the two, pushing her glasses up her nose with a trembling hand.

"Shhh, it's okay. It-"

"Sh-shelter, we're not in a shelter, we need to get to a shelter-" it was a thin thread of panic.

"No, Li Pai, it wasn't a bomb, they just-"

"No sirens, didn't hear the sirens, we need to get to a shelter-"

"Shh. Li Pai? Come on. Jiening?"

"Hm?" The ex-colonist's eyes focused behind the thick lenses. "Oh. Right, let's get her out of here."

"City's on fire, where's the shelter, they never showed us our shelters-"

Lun snorted, face twisted in a vicious snarl. "Don't know why you're complaining. At least you Beijing collaborators _had_ shelters. We didn't, and they were actually aiming at us!" He turned and walked away quickly, head lowered, shoving a trembling student out of the way.

Wufei was suddenly grateful he and Nataku had never been near Beijing. He had no idea how he'd have reacted otherwise. He'd been ready from the moment he'd set foot back on earth to face a hostile soldier with a grudge, but this...

"Was Beijing hit bad?" he asked before he could stop himself.

"Yes," Ju Mei said tightly as she maneuvered her friend to her feet.

"Who? Alliance? OZ? Rebels?" Wufei added the last with a glance at Lun's departing back.

"Just about everybody including a Gundam," Ju Mei snapped back at him, eyes blazing. Then her gaze faltered. "Sorry, Wufei, you couldn't know. You were in the colonies."

"Yes," Wufei absently lied. Who the hell had been in Beijing? Sandrock had hit the base nearby, but that was a good thirty miles away from the city, at least...Well, it didn't much matter now.

He watched the girls leave, the other students settle down, eyes wide, or in tears, or laughing way too loudly. He picked up his bench and sat down to finish his lunch.

The book lay on the table, unopened. He didn't think Fogherty had a chance in hell of keeping his attention now.

 

 

The steady beat of his feet hitting the concrete put Wufei in a trance near to meditation, though he never lost sight of his surroundings. He sprinted through the small stretch of garden near the library just for the hell of it, feeling his muscles play like a finely tuned instrument, then he slowed to a quick, quiet step as he rounded the old building.

"- fucking colony bastards nearly dropped Libra on us! You want us to-"

"Shh!"

Wufei didn't slow down, but he didn't accelerate either, pretending he hadn't heard. He didn't think it was meant for him; the small group standing out of the light sprinkle of rain in the library porch were concentrated on their discussion. The shush had been automatic. No one raised their voice on campus. No one said anything. Everyone looked over his or her shoulder. It was the quiet before the air-raid siren.

Fortunately the campus was huge, it defused the tension somewhat. It had been the biggest university in the PR of China while that country still existed as such, over a century ago. Now it was a fifth the size, reduced to one of its founding universities, and it was more important by prestige than number of students, especially these last years. During his run Wufei had seen post-grads and doctorates walking around in ones and twos, but there were very few pupils in the years between entry level and graduation, when the war had been at its most intense. The university had been closed last year, as two of the science buildings on the edge of the campus had been accidentally shelled along with parts of the city due to a targeting error while OZ was attacking alliance forces nearby. No wonder ZJU had not made much of a fuss over his entry requirements, they needed the pupils.

Three hundred new students had enrolled, a pitiful number compared to even a few years back. And quite a few of them were having a hard time getting into the studying mindset.

Scuttlebutt still didn't know where to place Wufei. Military, most probably. But from the colonies, by his own admission. That left a few unfortunate choices.

A week before...

He practiced his katas at night, to avoid curious or hostile onlookers, and because it gave him a better shot at a peaceful night of sleep if he exhausted himself and let loose the day's tensions first. The changing room was empty when he finished but someone had disturbed the bench he'd left in front of his locker as a primitive security monitor. Ten merry minutes later he finished checking the locker over for every conceivable type of booby-trap, wishing, exceptionally, that he had Maxwell handy. Where was your explosives expert when you needed him? The locker was safe as far as he could tell. He looked at his clothes a bit more carefully, assuming they'd be slashed, or possibly trapped.

The only sign of disturbance was a white band strangling the sleeve of his tunic.

He wasn't sure how to react. For all he knew this was a test, from one side or the other, to determine which faction he belonged to. Paradoxically if he indicated in any way that they were right, it would definitely put him in with the Ozzies, because many of White Fang, and almost all who had a military background, had been ex-OZ from the colonies or the Treize faction.

The irony was just breathtaking.

He ripped off the band and pocketed it, thinking he could try to trace the owner. The chances were minimal, but what else was he supposed to do? Go through every member of the rebel and military factions and beat them up until he found the culprit, and then beat him up again?

Wufei tried to control the small part of himself that said this was a very good plan. It was the voice of the inner warrior who wished he were back on a battlefield where alliances had been muddled, but at least people were shooting at you. That always made things a lot clearer. How was he supposed to react to an attack on his clothes?

"Go sleeveless," Ko snorted the next day, lounging on the bench next to Wufei. His pose looked completely relaxed, but Wufei knew the ex-OZ officer was aware of the movements and whereabouts of each of the three other people in the study room.

"Why not," Wufei muttered, taking a sip. "It's only raining every other day now."

"If you can drink that energy-protein-vitamins-ye-gods-everything-but-taste drink, then you're not afraid of a little water."

Wufei held up the can of protein-blend thoughtfully. "Actually I'd rather it didn't have any taste. Tasteless would be quite an improvement in fact."

"So you _are_ a masochist. That explains a lot."

"No, I just-...someone- a friend of mine got me used to these things during the war. I don't know why I still drink them." It wasn't as if he needed the extra energy. But somehow he found the flat taste comforting. He set the can down.

"So what do I do about this?" He held up the white band. Ko looked at it tiredly.

"Well, you can be smart and keep your head-"

"No."

"- down and stop pract-"

"No."

"-practicing your katas and jogging on campus-"

"No. I'm not going to give in to them."

"- and stop being a walking poster-boy for Veteran's Rehab Day, or else you can do what I do."

"Which is?"

Ko put his hands behind his head and grinned at the ceiling. "Lay back and watch with morbid fascination while every single faction on campus puts Chang Wufei on their hit list and then beat each other up for the privilege of making your life miserable."

Wufei snorted. "I'd like to see them try."

"Strangely enough, so would I..." Ko's eyes became dreamy. Wufei had watched Ko operate these last few weeks as the one-time officer tried to keep 'his side' calm and under control. The man was a natural mediator. But like Wufei he kept the soldier's instincts that occasionally made them both long to be able to cut through the crap. With a bloody big thermal beam.

"So is that why you hang around me?" Wufei asked before he fully thought the question through.

"Is that what I'm doing?" Ko tilted his head to look at Wufei from the corner of his eyes. Wufei shrugged. Ko didn't avoid him like others did, and would sit down to talk to Wufei when the ex-Ozzie's cynicism got the better of him, but it wasn't all that frequent.

Ko looked back at the ceiling again. "I must be the kind of guy who likes to watch acrobats walk the tightrope without a net. What are you doing Saturday night?"

Wufei almost choked on the drink he'd absently picked up again. "Studying," he said tensely, trying to look at Ko without seeming to. He stiffened as the other man stood up in one smooth movement and leaned towards him.

"Good," Ko said, grabbing Wufei's drink without looking at him. "That off-campus party they're organizing, I happen to know Meng invited some friends from his former unit, so I'd rather not see you there. Their whole squadron took some heavy losses attacking Libra-"

"I'm not White Fang."

"Well it would be stupid to get yourself beaten up over someone else's mistake then."

"Hey, that's my drink you're taking with you," Wufei snapped as Ko headed towards the door.

"How can you swallow this shit?" Ko said, after taking a swig. He made a show of looking at the label. "And it's got caffeine in it. Kid your age shouldn't drink this, Chang, it'll stunt your growth."

"Screw you, Ko."

"Yeah, yeah, see you around Chang." Ko left with a grin and a wave, still sipping Wufei's drink.

Wufei stared at the white band in his hand, then threw it in the bin and went back to his studies.

But the memory of that small move against him stuck in his memory the following week. The mention of the word Libra had him on edge now. He cut his run short, heading out the gates back to the apartment.

No other test of his partisanship had been forthcoming since the incident with the band. He suspected Ko had had words with someone. He wanted to forget about the whole thing, try to live a normal student life. But his warrior reflexes wouldn't let him, they were constantly on alert, surrounded as he was by potential hostiles. Sometimes, he wondered if his mind wasn't letting his senses run away with him, just to give him that extra edge, that little feeling of danger whose absence made life dull to the ex-Gundam pilot.

He saw a familiar figure at the foot of the apartment building as he slowed to a walk. The stocky man was looking at one of the stone lions adorning the frontispiece above the doorway, and scratching his chin. Wufei glanced at his watch in surprise as he drew near.

"I'm early," Wai said, in lieu of greeting, as he caught the tail end of Wufei's movements.

"I'll shower and we can go." Wufei had established shortly after their first meeting that his uncle preferred curt to obsequious. So did he.

"Pity... " Wai's eyes were back on the stone lion guarding the doorway. Wufei followed his gaze. The snarl was partially eaten away, the stone tinged green on the crack.

"Bullets? Shell?" Wufei asked, eyeing the damage he'd never really noticed before.

"Neglect," Wai answered quietly. "Apparently the caretakers got sidetracked by the war. We shouldn't let trivialities distract us from cherishing our past, any more than we should allow the worship of the past to distract us from the present..."

Wufei hid a smile as he unlocked the door. Though prone to fits of something like poetry, Wai was mostly hard-headed and practical. He'd be grumbling about the follies of youth as he laid spackle over fresh bullet holes in an old building, probably while the fire-fight was still ongoing around him.

Wufei enjoyed his uncle's visits. The old man showed up every other week or so, between his new duties as elder and his work on earth and in the colonies, to take his nephew out to lunch or to see the beauties of Hangzhou. As his guardian, he was supposed to be checking up on Wufei's health and well-being, but his uncle didn't fuss over him. They'd eat out, play chess or checkers in one of Hangzhou's parks, walk the streets and survey old buildings and new war damage. Wai was surprisingly easy to get along with, by Wufei's standards; which meant that the old man was argumentative, stubborn, not very chatty, and didn't mind the occasional long silence from his nephew. Sometimes Wufei found himself talking about the war, his doubts, the crushing burden of fighting alone against not one but two armies intent on destroying each other and everything Wufei had left to protect. The old man listened to his words and to his silences, and never insulted him with sympathy.

Wufei didn't mention his present difficulties though. They were nothing compared to what he'd already faced and defeated, and he would deal with them himself when the time came.

 

 

Wufei woke with a gasp. He lay in the unfamiliar darkness - three months now but still unfamiliar - and waited for his heartbeat to return to normal, as well as other parts of his anatomy. He scowled at the canopy above his head and wished he was the kind of dishonorable bastard who could just pick up a girl for sex and dump her the next day.

His studies were too intense, his schedule too tight...and that was just an excuse. Fundamentally he was completely uninterested in having any kind of relationship with anyone at present. If ever. He didn't even want any friends. They'd only be a distraction.

Despite the age difference and his cold attitude - a teasing Ko claimed that it actually made him a natural babe-magnet - there were still some girls who appeared eager to try to appeal to him. He'd found it all too easy to ignore them. He'd been approached by a couple of guys as well. Despite Lun's jab, he wasn't interested either. Deep down he'd felt relieved at that, and then embarrassed at even having considered - not a chance. The thing with Yuy had been a necessity of war, nothing more. The war was over now, he didn't feel the need for any sexual relief at this point.

If only his body had agreed.

Wufei glanced at the clock. Five AM. He'd been asleep four hours. Enough. He'd go take a shower - a cold shower - and go for an early morning run.

Most of his dreams were of battle-winds and bloodshed. But occasionally they took him back to a bed in Italy or a bunk aboard Peacemillion. They were confused jumbles of images and feelings, a glimpse of wall-paper, the sound of a tube of lube hitting the floor, the feel of a comforter beneath his throbbing body, blue eyes hazy with lust; power and scars writhing beneath his fingertips, violent pleasure, ragged breath in his ears, the tension of two bodies fighting and mating with the same passion. Wufei shuddered and quickly stepped into the shower.

Maybe he should try to find a temporary...Wufei rolled his eyes at the word ‘arrangement', but that was what it was. A woman who'd accept that he didn't love her, couldn't love her, who would agree to not distract him, and would understand that he would not be able to marry her. Or he could look for ivory in a dog's mouth, which would be easier. Best just keep it bottled up. In a little over four years he'd be twenty one and his clan would select someone for him to marry. The idea made him uncomfortable, but by then he'd have saved up enough frustration to be able to produce the required heir and then...Wufei shut the thought off. His life belonged to his clan now. He had long ago accepted that he didn't have the capacity for happiness, merely satisfaction. He couldn't even blame the war for that, it dated much further back. He'd always lived for his studies or his duties; for the pursuit of excellence, not joy. He'd lead his clan and excel in the role they'd chosen for him, as leader, arbitrator, husband and father. It would be the source of his pride and contentment.

Wufei strangled the little sneering voice inside him that said that it would be a pale sort of contentment. The voice, nasal twang reminiscent of dark streets and raw survival, fought back and asked him if he really could be 'a guy who never puts his life where his mouth is, hey, buddy?' A politician who would draw and blur the lines rather than the blade that cut through them.

To distract himself, he picked up the paper as the tea brewed. Relena was front-page news on an almost daily basis. The riots in various places were on the third page, in smaller print. They never led to much, to Wufei's surprise, but he was certain this state of affairs would not continue. The peace looked promising in black and white type-print, and in the salons and embassies where no one dropped the soy sauce and made hundreds of young men and women dive under the table. In the real world however, war was surely just a matter of time, in fact it was a miracle it hadn't already happened.

Wufei didn't look at the vice-foreign minister. His eyes went, as usual, to the shadows behind her. With all the journalists present, even he had slipped up once or twice; a shadow in the background, turning away, caught in the middle of his own vanishing act. Wufei didn't know if he watched over Relena all the time. It seemed a waste of his potential. Relena was in Berlin that day and the only bodyguard behind her was a thickset woman he'd seen in other pictures. He dropped the paper with a shrug and hoped they'd found something more exciting for Yuy to do than babysit her ex-Highness. If Wufei was going slightly stir-crazy, Heero would be fit to be tied.

Wufei left for his run. He'd take his usual route by the lake, a good long workout to start the day and get his mind back to the present where it belonged.


	12. The Long Quiet Road, Part II

A camel amongst the sheep  
\--- Chinese saying

It all came to a head, not to anyone's surprise.

Ju Mei had done her best to defuse the coming explosion, consciously or not. A peace fair had been organized that day. The evening's music and entertainment were excellent; the university arts club had put a great deal of effort into the silk fan dance. The fluttering butterfly movements were a symbol of childlike happiness and peace. The food and non-alcoholic refreshments had drawn out most of the students who, true to university life forms anywhere, were never adverse to a free meal. Ju Mei's success could be measured by the fact she'd even managed to drag Wufei away from the library to join them.

Wufei realized something was wrong, but he didn't know what. He'd been deep in his studies and had not really been interested in the events around him. He knew what would happen sooner or later. The wolves would fall upon each other, the sheep would panic, the cycle would start again.

It took him a few moments to realize it was starting again here and now. Most students were not aware of it, but Wufei noticed that there were people missing, men and women whom he automatically kept an eye on when they were in a crowd. Well, maybe they were studying; so much posturing probably hurt their grades, he thought sardonically. But his warrior's senses were tallying the nervous laughter here and there, the growing tension of the crowd. He should probably go home.

"Chang!"

Wufei filled his coffee cup at the refreshment table again. He had to study late tonight, an Environmental Politics paper was due on Monday and he wanted to go to the museum tomorrow. He ignored Ko, hoping the older man would get the hint.

"Chang, you've got to help me!" Ko grabbed his shoulder. Wufei took the other's wrist in a threatening grip and removed it. Ko grimaced.

"They're gonna do it! Stupid fools. Come on, we've got to stop this!"

Wufei stared at him in amazement. "We?"

"Yes! I think I can talk Meng down, but we might need to keep them apart by force until I do." Meng was one of the non-leaders of the military faction.

"They've finally decided to have it out, have they?" Wufei was suddenly tired. Cynicism was only fun as long as the world didn't catch up with you. Then it just became sad. "Are they having duels, or just a grand old melee? Or did they decide to go all out and have a proper battle instead?"

Ko gaped at him, cheeks flushed with anxiety and rising anger. Wufei frowned. "They don't actually have weapons, do they?"

"I- I don't know!"

"Are they on campus?"

"Yes! They're just next to the social science building, in the parking lot."

"Well then the metal detectors would have picked something up if they were armed." Wufei looked for some sugar.

"You're perfectly aware people can get killed with bare hands alone!" Ko snarled. "They're not all amateurs."

Wufei was silent. He knew it, he didn't want to acknowledge it.

"Don't walk away, Chang. You've got to help me." Ko's voice was low and intense.

"Why?" Wufei stirred his coffee.

"Because you fought for peace. You can't just let this happen."

The motion of the plastic spoon might have slowed a tad, but Wufei knew his features betrayed nothing. "I never fought for peace, Ko. Sort it out yourself."

A hand slammed into the wall, cornering him against the table as he tried to walk away. Wufei had seen it coming and didn't react, merely leaned against the wall and stared up at the taller man who was trying to get his temper under control.

"Look Chang...I know you can fight, and I know you don't give a damn about either side. That's already good enough for me. I happen to think there's a whole lot more to you. I'm not fucking stupid. When I see a guy from the colonies practicing high level katas, and reach for his gun at the slightest upset with reflexes a commando would envy, and he's not even sixteen-"

"I am sixteen." Wufei sipped his coffee.

"-then I'm smart enough to put it together, _pilot_. But I don't care. I just want some muscle and a cool head to watch my back while I talk Meng and the others out of this, before it gets FUBAR. Now you're gonna follow me out there?"

"Or?" Wufei asked softly.

Ko stared at him, then licked his lips. "...Can we just say I made a very frightening and realistic threat right now? One that will get you to come with me? 'Cause by the time I actually think of one, they'll need body bags out there. I'll spend the rest of the night thinking about it and I'll have a really good threat ready for you in the morning."

Wufei couldn't help the snort. "You know," he said, putting his coffee down on the table, "you remind me of someone; a guy who kept making these annoying wise-cracks at the most inappropriate time. I'm not promising anything, but let's go see what we can do."

"Thanks, Chang."

"Whatever."

They had nearly reached the gymnasium's door when they realized it wasn't going to be that easy. Two of Lun's friends were there. They were exactly the kind who'd stay away from the real fight to threaten the timid civilians into keeping out of it. Wufei felt the old anger rise in his gut, the recoil away from a weakness that was so pitiful it thought it was strength. Beside him Ko sighed, a short, angry sound.

"Wufei!"

Ju Mei appeared behind them just as one of the cowards stepped forward with a smirk.

"Wufei, stay here!" Ju Mei whimpered.

"Listen to the girl, Chang, stay out of this. Ko, you're more than welcome to go out and play." His name was Vin Kaito, Wufei remembered, having memorized the ID and pasts of everyone on the campus with a history.

Some students had gathered. Most were indifferent, and Wufei felt his fists tense, the tendons creak, when he remembered Treize throwing himself on Nataku's glaive for them. A few looked worried. Some ducked away, preferring to keep their head in the sand and pretend nothing was happening until it was over, after which they'd feel very sorry about the victims. But half a dozen looked like they wanted to intervene and Wufei didn't want this to get out of hand.

He knew how this was going to end. He'd done this dance before. Two sides met, they fought, no one could stop it, no one really wanted to stop it. You could only attack them both, finish it as quickly as possible, to try to reduce the number of civilian casualties.

"You." He turned towards one of the indifferent ones. Black eyes widened as they were singled out. "You have a cell phone." Wufei's chin jerked towards the bulge in the man's breast pocket. "Call the police."

The guy hesitated. Vin stepped up to Wufei and poked him in the shoulder.

"Stay out of this if you know what's good for you, Chang. We're in our right to clean out the house. We didn't fight Bundt and his OZ lackeys so that they could send their kids to university. When we finish outside we'll take care of those collaborators hiding in here, and -"

"Get out the phone," Wufei told the man tightly without looking at Vin. "And call the police. And an ambulance."

"They're just taking the trash out of the campus, Chang, they won't need an ambulance." Vin grabbed him by the front of his tunic, and made a noise like a punctured balloon when Wufei's fist slammed into his gut.

"You're right, and it wasn't for them," Wufei muttered. He thrust the man away and turned in the same movement. Ko barely had the time to gasp. His head snapped back and he fell like he was pole-axed. Wufei quickly checked the man's breathing; he hadn't meant to hit him that hard, he was too used to sparring against Heero. Then he nodded at Ju Mei, staring at him with eyes like saucers. "Take care of him and make sure he doesn't interfere. Get the medics to check both of them when they get here."

"But-"

"Tell the police to go to the social science building, the parking lot to the north of it. Tell them to bring riot gear, though I'm hoping they won't need it."

" _But_ -"

"You." Jiening stared at the finger leveled at her. "Keep anyone from leaving the building until the police tell them otherwise." The woman had a very capable, calming presence and her wits about her, she should be able to keep the few do-gooders from interfering.

Wufei didn't wait for an answer. The other coward had run away before Vin had hit the ground. Wufei walked swiftly towards the social science building, bending his arms and stretching his shoulders to warm up.

 

 

They were still at the threats and shouting part of the evening's program when Wufei arrived.

The ex-military faction, two dozen or so men and women, from new students to post-docs, were standing practically in formation, in stiff poses, glaring. The rebel faction were a loose-knit group of fifty people, though some seemed to have a 'just a bystander' attitude. Half a dozen of them were at the forefront, shouting at their enemy.

Wufei approached and almost laughed as he realized he had a problem. The amount of violence in the air was rapidly approaching critical levels. Now in the past, Wufei's very presence had disrupted open warfare between hundreds of mobile suits. But the arrival of a slender sixteen year old did not have quite the same impact as the appearance of a Gundam.

"The police are on their way," he said loudly, just to get the ball rolling.

That brought some of the attention to bear on him. Lun stepped forward with a scowl. People from the military faction were glaring at him too. These were the hot-heads, the ones who resented the fact that this peace, enforced by the surrender of their superiors, had turned them into losers. They didn't want anyone to stop this. They'd had their full of provocations and snide remarks, and were just waiting for the opportunity to retaliate.

Wufei walked slowly into the twenty feet of no-man's-land between the two factions. There was a murmur of questions from either side as the students who were not first-year asked their colleagues who the hell was this teenager and what was he doing away from his babysitter.

"You guys aren't going to break it up on your own, are you... " Wufei found he was smiling. He should be sad, furious. Part of him was. He would stop this here and now, but something similar would flare up again tomorrow on any other part of the planet or in space.

"Just to get one thing clear from the start." Wufei raised his voice slightly. "Do any of you fools have any weapons?"

A few more eyes fixed on his lean form. "Don't need any," someone from the military side said with a snicker.

"That's a pity."

Slowly, more eyes were fixing on him in surprise.

"A weapon clarifies much. If you were armed, those of you who are cowards would have already run away and the rest of you would have skipped all this annoying posturing and gone straight to business."

His words sounded louder in the slowly growing silence.

"It would make things easier for me," Wufei added in a voice like steel. "I have no qualms in defending myself. Anyone serious enough to attack me with a weapon could expect broken bones or a broken neck, depending on my mood. That's a quick and efficient way to get someone to stop fighting, you'll agree. The more I can take out this way, the faster this farce will be over with; I might even have enough time to go work on my paper afterwards. Now I ask again, since I finally have everyone's attention. Is - anyone - armed?"

He kept his head slightly lowered as if he couldn't even be bothered looking at either party. His ears and senses picked up the slight shuffle. He hadn't bothered to concentrate on the ex-military side, they would be confident enough in their martial skills to show up bare-handed. On the resistance side, he heard just one person shift in the way he was waiting for. His eyes darted, caught the tail end of that movement. Wide eyes, fixed pupils, movement to grip something heavy in a bomber jacket. Wufei's memory flashed him up a history and some stats to match the boy's face. Shi Nu Sha. Nineteen, Shanxi province, hometown bombed out by Bundt's forces in an attempt to control the region, joined the resistance a year before Wufei killed Bundt and his cronies, not entirely by design. Had been caught and imprisoned by Romefeller's OZ a month before peace had been declared. He'd been one of the first on Wufei's list to have the means to turn this argument into something more deadly. The other suspects hadn't reacted the same way; chances were good that Shi was the only one who actually had a weapon. That was an almost miraculous bit of luck.

"Right, let's get down to business." Wufei slowly cracked his knuckles, eyes still on the ground, senses carefully on alert. "I don't have much hope this is going to end without violence, but just to give you the incentive to contemplate this possibility, I promise to smash the kneecaps of the first person who throws a punch. You older students can ask your juniors, if you don't know who I am. I may look young, but I'm not someone to mess with." No one seemed to doubt that, actually. "Now, if you people still want to do this, maybe we could arrange it so that you attack me directly instead of each other. You'll still end up hurt, but since I actually know what I'm doing, the number of casualties will be fairly low." Wufei took a few steps forward, positioning himself between the two hottest heads on either side, and getting a bit closer to Shi. The man's hands were loose at his side, he didn't look like he was going to do anything yet. He was a mad dog, that one, his reactions would not be predictable. Wufei found himself smiling tightly. If he had to be perfectly honest with himself, he'd admit he liked this better than writing that paper.

Two people from the resistance side stepped forward, turned to glare the others out of their shock. The silence was breaking under the assault of angry murmurs. Wufei tensed, weight poised. He'd go for the leaders first. The military would hopefully stay put if they weren't attacked directly, so if he concentrated on-

"Stop this now!"

Wufei felt his heart turn to lead. He turned slowly, trying to keep his cool, keep the all-important control of the situation before it blew up in all their faces.

"Go away, Ju Mei," he snapped and then stopped.

It wasn't only Ju Mei...

A trembling, ashen-faced Li Pai and two older boys were at the forefront by her side, but there was a trickle of people heading all the way back to the gymnasium. They were moving forward slowly, deliberately, but not as a herd. Wufei couldn't quite fathom their intent. He'd never seen people move like this, as distinct individuals towards a common goal.

He glared at Jiening who was a few feet behind Ju Mei. She glared back over her glasses and hoisted a groggy Ko more firmly onto her shoulders. She had a mulish air about her. Damn, he'd been wrong to put her in charge. Ko was awake, a hand clutching his jaw and he was scowling at Wufei too, though admittedly with a better reason.

Ju Mei took a step forward and tried to shake Li Pai, loose but her friend clutched at her jacket and took the steps with her. A quick argument flashed between their eyes, then Ju Mei took the trembling girl by the shoulders and helped her forward. One of the boys - a third year student, Wufei thought - walked with them, looking strangely calm. The fourth one hung back, waiting for others to catch up.

"You are not - we will not let you do this." Ju Mei's voice was pitched higher than usual, but it was firm.

"Ju Mei." Wufei licked his lips, but he could see from the jut of her jaw that he would not be able to talk her away quickly enough. Great, that was all he needed. He would not be able to pull his punches if he had civilians to protect. This was going to get very ugly.

Others were moving between the two sides. The second third-year student had walked over to some people his age in the resistance faction and was arguing in a low, intense voice. Ko had poked Jiening who, with the theatrical air of someone being unreasonably put upon, helped him walk unsteadily over to Meng and the others.

"Just what do you civvies think you are doing?" Lun put his hands in his pockets and tried to look relaxed, but surprise and unease were adding a line of tension in his shoulders.

"We could ask you the same thing," the third-year boy answered softly. People's angry murmurs abated as they strained to listen to him. "Don't you think there's been enough of this?"

Lun sneered. "We need to-"

"You _want_ to!" Ju Mei shot back, eyes blazing. "You want to fight, you want to keep your hate alive. You want your revenge, you want to get even, you want to win, you want another war. Well fine. But we're in the way. We'll always be in the way sooner or later, caught between two warring factions. You want to fight, Lun, you'll have to go through us, because you will eventually anyway."

"Maybe we should try to round up a few kids," a post-doc said quietly. His face was white and rigid, eyes hard behind rimless glasses. "My younger sister lost her arm and one eye in the bombing of Nanking last year. Did you want any young victims here? Or are the first-years young enough to count?"

The murmurs of angry agreement were coming from the crowd gathering around the factions. More people were slipping into the gap. Wufei had to take several steps back to give himself room.

"So what, you'll fight both sides, is that it?" One of Lun's older buddies shot this like a challenge to the post-doc, who was probably morally easier to threaten than a trembling Ju Mei and Li Pai. But it was Ju Mei who answered.

"No. We're not going to fight anybody. Total Pacifism means not fighting for peace any more than for anything else. But whatever it is you're fighting for...we'll not let you have it."

"We want to kick these murderers out of our schools-"

"Then you'll have to go through us. And even if you do and you succeed...then we'll leave as well." Ju Mei's voice was slowly coming down from hysteria. "The handful of you who _won_ can take your classes by yourselves, assuming that's what you actually are fighting for, and I'm not convinced."

"And if you can find teachers to teach you," someone added. Wufei recognized her as one of the lab assistants, part of the staff who had volunteered to watch over the evening's festivities.

"We'll not stand by and let you take us down this road again," someone else Wufei didn't know said slowly. "Where would it end? I hear some ex-resistance factions are talking about liberating China from the world nation, become our own country again, and kick the invaders from our soil. Well, I'll think you'll have to plow your way through a lot of people to do that too."

"And good luck finding someone to grow your food or take out the trash when you've _won_!" a fourth year student spat angrily.

"We can't fight you," the post-doc said calmly. "But you can't make us give up the peace. We died for it too."

Wufei shook his head. This all sounded nice, but there was one flaw in the argument.

He found himself moving to address it. It surprised him. There was a small part of him that wanted to keep a hold on his cynicism, that wanted Treize to be wrong. It was telling him to fully test the mettle of these people, whom he had dismissed as 'civilians' and who were now doing his job. Nothing like a little blood to see where someone's true values lay.

Wufei glanced back at Ju Mei, Li Pai and the others.

Some of them would die. But others would take their place. He could see it now. He had not wanted to believe it, but he should have. It had been in front of his face for months. All those small, localized riots all over the world, that had led to nothing bigger. The way so many people had quietly put their past and hate behind them and moved on. The war he'd been expecting that had failed to materialize.

Damn me, he thought, Relena was right. Treize was right. They are ready...

Now he just had to make sure no-one got killed for it.

He made as little noise as possible as he disabled Shi before the man could fully draw the gun from his jacket. The wild eyes had been fixed on the pacifists between the two factions, he'd not noticed Wufei's approach. Shi sagged as Wufei threw a quick, brutal punch to his solar plexus. He hauled the body to him and walked it away. The man was taller and heavier than he was, it wasn't easy. The resistance fighters were staring at the pacifists like wolves who've realized the sheep have formed their own alliance and have numbers on their side - no, more than that. They were weak yet they had a kind of moral strength that you could build the future on. It reminded him of Sally...None of the aggressors had noticed Shi and Wufei yet, but if the man slipped and fell, things could still get messy.

Some of Shi's weight shifted off Wufei's shoulders. Wufei glanced across the slumped body. Ko had grabbed Shi by the waist and was looking back at him expectantly. Wufei tilted his head towards the social studies building. Ko nodded and helped him carry Shi towards it. Behind them the argument was getting louder, but Wufei didn't think it would degenerate now. If it did...the people would take care of it. The peace was in their hands now.

Ko groaned and dropped Shi carelessly to lean against the building after they turned the corner and were out of sight. He rubbed his swollen jaw and closed his eyes, then slid down the wall to sit on the concrete. Wufei retrieved the gun he'd stuck in his belt and checked it.

"What the fuck is that?" Ko stared at it, eyes widening.

"Nice." Wufei's fingers danced over the charger, flicking it in and out, checking the barrel, disassembling and reassembling it with a few deft moves and absently cocking and aiming it at a stop sign a few meters away. "It's an alloy. Aluminum maybe, and some kind of non-metal ceramic. Tough as steel, but won't trigger most metal detectors as long as they're not calibrated to the bullets. Very new, obviously. I read about them online. Somebody's been producing them for criminal purposes, now that metal detectors have appeared in a lot of places. But I hear terrorists like them a lot as well."

"Where'd a two-bit psycho like Shi get a hold of that?"

"I'm sure the police would love to know." Wufei checked the man who had started to groan and stir. He wished he had handcuffs. "Did any of you suicidal idiots think to call them by the way?"

"Um, not that I know of."

"Morons."

"I think the staff will have. Chang...I can watch this piece of shit and give them the gun if you want. You don't have to stay here."

Wufei glanced up curiously.

Ko shrugged. "Not that I don't owe you a heap of trouble for breaking my jaw-"

"You're talking just as much as usual, Ko."

"-almost breaking my jaw, but the police will be looking into everyone involved in this tonight. You might want to avoid that."

Wufei hesitated, then handed Ko the gun after ejecting the charger. "You sure-"

"They know who I am anyway, but you...well, there's still quite a few people with a grudge against someone like you, and if word of your presence here gets out...Go on, get out of here."

"...Thanks, Ko."

"Whatever." Ko grinned and then winced at the pull to his bruised jaw.

"Oh, Wufei?"

Wufei turned back. Ko was fiddling with the charger, not quite looking at him. "Just for my own curiosity, I mean, I-...never mind. It's the past."

"Nataku. Shenlong, rather. The one you knew as 05. That what you wanted to know?"

"...Thanks. I thought so. I, ah, I was an MP on C0130 while my unit was deploying back to earth. Those idiots from White Fang and the MS corp decided to have it out right outside our fucking window. Me and my CO, we'd started evacuating the colony, we were sure one side or the other would end up blowing us all to hell. Someone stopped them though. Kicked both sides to the mat. And took out the colony's defense grid too, but I suppose that was fair enough. You always fought for peace, Chang Wufei."

Wufei turned without a word. Fighting for peace...That paradox was at the heart of his new problem.

 

 

Wai was waiting for him patiently. Wufei's politeness towards his elders was pricking him, but he finished his train of thought in the silence of his meditation. He needed to know where he stood before he talked to his guardian.

Finally he opened his eyes. Wai was sitting on the couch; he nodded a greeting.

"I heard about the fuss," the elderly man said in his usual abrupt tone. "My friend in the university board called to warn me. He almost missed me, I was about to return to L5."

"Sorry to have interrupted your trip, honored uncle." Wufei stood and went to make the tea.

"Hell, hardly your fault." Wai sounded a bit puzzled at the honored uncle' term. After their first meeting he'd ordered Wufei to call him Wai, or 'uncle' if he felt the need to be coddled, and forget about 'all that elder nonsense'. "In fact, that's why I'm here. First I wanted to make sure you were okay, since no-one's seen you in the past two days. Your friend - Ko, I think his name was - he was trying to wring your address out of the board, he was worried."

"That fussy old woman knew I'd not been hurt," Wufei muttered as he set the water to boil. His uncle cocked his head as he leaned in the doorway.

"It never hurts to check. Anyway, I'm here on behalf of my friend. The board want to keep this somewhat discreet. They've expelled the trouble-makers, but most of the students are-"

"Are they expelling me?"

"What?!" Wai shot away from the door jamb. "Why on earth would they want to expel you? You helped stop it!"

"No, I didn't. They didn't need my help to stop the fight."

"Well you certainly stopped that lunatic with a weapon, and that's what the board wanted me to thank you for. They can't do it officially since they'd rather that part of the incident was not known. The Preventers requested it too."

"Preventers? Oh yes, I suppose they'd be called in to trace the gun." Wufei prepared the things for the tea automatically, mind distant.

"So...that's why I'm here. Why did you think they'd want to expel you?" Wai was looking at him intensely.

Wufei said nothing. He poured the water into the tea pot and carried the tray into the living room, putting it on the coffee table. Wai had made way for him at the door and was following him, almost radiating puzzlement.

Wufei started to pour the tea, but put the pot down with a clunk instead, stood and bowed at the waist.

"I'm sorry. I have failed you," he said, in a voice he meant to be contrite. It merely sounded tired and angry.

"Yes, I'm getting that." Wai sounded still puzzled. "How exactly do you estimate that you've failed-"

"Before the others interfered, I was about to use force as well, to stop the fighting."

Wai's eyebrows shot up. "Force? Against who?"

"Everybody." Wufei crossed his arms and waited for the old man's displeasure.

"Figures." Wai rubbed the back of his head. The cropped grey hair made a scrunching noise. "But you only reacted as you would have during the-"

"The war is over!" Wufei snapped. "I am no longer a soldier. I am the leader of our clan and its arbitrator, the man who is supposed to find peaceful solutions to problems such as this."

"When you put it like that it does sound a lot worse." Wai shrugged with a grimace. "Chang, you've been a civilian for only a handful of months. It's normal that you-"

"I failed." The words were heavy, condemning. "I expect better of myself when I set myself a goal."

"Hmm yes." Wai's eyes dropped to stare blankly at the teapot. "I've not known you long, but I got that much. You know, boy, you're only human, you could be a bit easier on yourself."

"Tell me, uncle, when you build a building, do you accept that it will have weak foundations?"

Wai winced. "I'm not going to win this argument, am I. What am I supposed to do, Wufei. Make you run laps around the campus? Send you to bed without supper? Whip you? Seems like you're doing a good enough job of that yourself." The old man didn't seem approving.

Wufei shook his head. "I will deal with my faults as is appropriate, uncle, though if you think further punishment is necessary, I will obey you. You are the only elder in the family now, and my guardian, you have the final say on that."

"I do, don't I..." Wai was rubbing his head, staring blankly at Wufei's crossed arms.

"I thought you should know. It would be dishonorable for me to keep it from you, especially if you thought I had done well. But be assured. I will try harder."

Wai was silent for awhile, eyes distant. "You know, Wufei...there are others in your generation who could help you out with the leadership thing. I mean, Meiran's second cousin, he's a planet-sized prick, but he's got a head for business like you wouldn't believe. Maybe...maybe you could drop economics and pick up that elective in Asian literature again."

Wufei spilled the tea he'd started to serve. He'd been expecting to hear his uncle say he wasn't up to it and had been formulating arguments to convince the old man to let him try. He hadn't been expecting that.

"What? Literature?"

"I...don't take this wrong, Wufei, but it's obvious to me you're not happy with the role we've assigned to you."

Wufei slowly set the pot down again.

"We all have to do things we don't like, at times," Wai continued slowly. "I certainly don't enjoy being hauled from pillar to post with this elder business. But that's just extra work for me. This is your whole life we're talking about, Wufei. After all you and the other four boys did for us, don't you think you deserve to do at least something with your life you want? You can still be our leader, but-"

"No."

"Boy-"

"Apologies, uncle, but you do not understand." Wufei's voice was tight. He sat down and crossed his arms, eyes on the tea stain on the tray. "I have accepted the future our clan has chosen for me. I am needed." Wai shifted, but Wufei continued without letting him interrupt. "As such, I will accept no distractions. I will be the best I can be. Happiness is not a requirement. I doubt I have much capacity for it anyway."

"That's your thing, isn't it," Wai muttered. "Whatever you're doing, whatever the field, as long as you can beat yourself up and challenge yourself and push yourself to be perfect-"

Wufei snorted; the sound was raw and wounded. He rubbed his face with his hand. "I'm not perfect, uncle. But I strive to be," he said softly.

"Hmmm." Wai glared at the tea stain as well. There was a long moment of silence.

His uncle muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'screw this', then stood. The look on his face was so serious and severe that Wufei instinctively got to his feet and braced himself.

"Chang Wufei. I have decided your punishment. As the only elder of our clan, it is my decision who gets to lead it. It is not you. In fact, you are no longer a member of our clan. We reject you."

Wufei stared at him for a full minute, then swayed and sat down heavily.

"You..." His voice trailed off into silence.

"Right." In his narrowing field of vision he saw Wai's hands serve some tea. "Now that that's done, I'm no longer your elder, boy. But I'm still family. Indulge an old man's curiosity. Tell me what you're going to do now."

Wufei was silent. His eyes seemed chained to Wai's cup as the man took a sip then looked at him encouragingly, as if he hadn't just severed his nephew from the last meaning to his existence.

"Do... ?" Wufei finally croaked. "I...nothing. What can I do?"

"Be the best," his uncle said promptly. "But not as a clan leader. Chang, it was obvious the moment I saw you that you'd be a rotten politician. Well, not rotten in the sense that would actually be useful to our clan. The prick - I mean, Meiran's cousin, he'll make a fairly good leader for us, but I'm confident no one will listen to him too seriously. Most of our clan is gone, and the ones who remain are young, and deserve an unfettered future. They can build their own, choose their own at their discretion, find a path between new opportunity and tradition. But you're too bull-headed for that. It's all the way or 'no way' with you. So now, you're free. What is it you want to do, Chang Wufei. What is it _you_ want?"

Wufei's mind was a whirlwind of jagged thoughts and memories. Justice, serve his clan, Meiran dead, Nataku, oh Nataku my strength, what, what was he supposed to do now...? What scared him the most was that though he was shocked to the core and shaking inside and out, he was not as devastated as he should be. The wind blowing through him was the hard, cold wind of sudden freedom, the dizzying possibilities. He was ashamed of the way his soul grasped at it like a lifeline.

His uncle sipped his tea loudly, and seemed as patient as turtles.

"If this was a misguided attempt to make me happy, uncle...it's not going to work," Wufei finally said, leaning his swimming head back against the couch cushions to stare at the paneled ceiling. Wai merely slurped his tea again.

"I...there is nothing...I..." Wufei tried to gather his thoughts. Happiness, contentment, he didn't even know what they were...

No, that wasn't true.

There had been a time when he'd had them. Not happiness, but...for once in his life, things had been clear. He remembered a long time ago telling Master O that no one could make a difference, could truly change things, but he'd been wrong. He had been the blade cutting down, the sureness of death and fate, and all his doubts had left him, because he was doing what was right to the best of his considerable abilities, constantly challenging himself to do better and to do more. He was bearing his full weight to where it mattered most, where it could change things, he'd made a difference and yes, in a strange way that no one else would have recognized, he'd been happy. He'd been about to die, but he had been happy.

He was free to reach for that again.

"I will join the Preventers." The sentence started out tentative, but ended in an affirmation.

Wai choked on his tea. "Wh-what? Didn't you want to study art?" That was obviously not what the old man had had in mind.

"Literature was a challenge to me. Understanding all the old philosophies and letting them confront and hone my own," Wufei said slowly. "But I've followed a different path since then. I need more." The pen might be mightier than the sword, but he knew which one he wanted to wield.

"Haven't you earned some of the peace you fought for, Wufei?" His uncle looked at him with some pain in his old eyes.

"No," Wufei said tightly. "I'd like to make this clear once and for all, and I'm starting to think I'll have it tattooed on my forehead. I never fought for peace. I was fighting for revenge, justice and against the warmongers who were endangering civilians and arming the weak. Not for peace, because I thought it was a lie. But I think...I think I can believe in it now, and it's something worth defending. And, because reality is always a lot more messy than the Peacecraft woman would like us to believe, I think peace will need defending. A lot."

"Yes, but how is this going to make you-...will you toss something heavy at your old uncle if I said the word 'happy'?"

"By reaching for perfection."

"I think, boy, that you have a rather misguided idea of what a policeman does for a living. From what I understand of it, there's lot of boring paperwork, then you get shot at, and then there's more boring paperwork."

Wufei hesitated, but he didn't want his uncle to worry. "I can handle some mundane tasks. And I believe in what they do now, so the work itself would be satisfying. But there's more. I...one of my wartime allies joined the Preventers. Before I came here he asked me to become his partner." Wai's eyebrows lifted in sudden comprehension. "I don't know if he's still interested. It's been a few months. He may have found someone - he's probably found someone else to work with by now, but I guess I can see if I can join their unit, or whatever they call it." He didn't feel too hopeful. So much time had passed. But it was worth a shot. He didn't have much else to aim for.

"This man is a friend of yours, you say?"

"Better. He's a rival," Wufei answered, reducing the complexities of their relation to the aspect his uncle might understand. "He's someone I can measure myself against, who will challenge me. We work well together too, we do what we need to, without distractions or-" he was about to add 'futile emotions' but his uncle, who did not know the force of nature named Heero Yuy, would probably get the wrong idea and go a bit weird on him. "It's what I want to do," he simply concluded.

"You won't be bored, is that it?"

Wufei nodded.

Wai looked at him for a long time, then put his cup down with a decisive clink. "Good. Well, I'll definitely have to make your removal from the clan official because there are a few who would have fits if they knew their supposed-to-be-Lord was going to be a cop. But that's just paper and politics, boy." Wai's eyes held his seriously. "The clans, and all these insulating ideas, they need a make-over. We should not be a cage for our children. We should be the nest from which they will leave to make us proud. That's all I ask of you, boy. Be your best, make us proud, and you will always be a part of us, whatever the old crusts like me say. Got that?"

"Yes sir." Wufei stood and bowed. Wai made an impatient gesture.

"Cut the kowtowing and get out of here. I'll deal with ZJU and the rest. Get to wherever you're meant to be. And if that guy you want to work with makes any trouble because you were mature and kind enough to try to sacrifice your future for the good of your clan, and made him wait a few months...if he cuts up rough, tell him there's a civil construction engineer who's practiced martial arts since he was a boy and who's still limber enough to kick his ass, who will want a word with him."

Wufei's smile twitched, but he managed to say: "I'll be sure to tell him, uncle."

He went to pick up his jacket and duffel; he'd never actually unpacked it. He didn't spare a thought for the clothes in the wardrobe or the few things he'd bought. He hefted his laptop bag on one shoulder and felt the reassuring hard nudge of the Luger hit his hip on the other side. He grabbed his sword from its stand and turned to bow to his uncle. The warning look in the old eyes turned his bow into a nod instead. Wai gave a firm smile in return. "Write to me when you get there, boy."

"Yes, uncle."

Wufei closed the door to the safe-house behind him and walked out into the night, mind on plans for the future, the most immediate of which was dropping by the university to smack Ko out of his worrywarting, then getting to the Preventer HQ without surrendering his weapons or going through too much hassle to find his one-time partner. Once he'd achieved that, he'd see if Heero still wanted Wufei to fight by his side.


	13. Straight and Narrow

Smash the pots and sink the boats.  
\--- Chinese saying

 

The newly build preventer's headquarters in Brussels was an imposing building. Half of it was underground, but the rest was a gleaming peak of steel and glass, with the ESUN symbol emblazoned over two stories in marble and metal. There were uniformed guards at the door, though they stayed discreet since this was a force for peace, not repression. From the multiple heli- and MS pads at its apex to the pleasant if severely geometric gardens at its base, it represented the strong arm of the new world nation, the watchful eye kept over peace.

It was ridiculously easy to break into.

Wufei walked slowly and casually down the hall. The visitor's badge he'd lifted from the ditzy secretary hung from the belt of his jeans. He had an empty A4 envelope in one hand and a clipboard in the other, he wore his youth like a badge of innocence and the word 'courier' written all over him. He was all but invisible as he walked the hallways past cubicles and offices, all still smelling faintly of new carpet and wrapping plastic. He didn't like these subterfuges, but he'd not fought a war alongside Barton and Maxwell not to be able to pull it off when need be.

Of course, a small voice at the back of his mind pointed out dryly, this might not have been a situation that called for it. He could have avoided all this hassle with one phone call.

He caught the scowl on his face in the reflection from a glass door and schooled his features to impassivity again. It wasn't that much of an effort to break into this place. And it was a phone call he'd been reluctant to make, for reasons he didn't even try to explore.

When he'd left Hangzhou, he'd found a few remnants of Sally's resistance group operating out of Beijing, more or less under cover and on the edge of legality out of force of habit and a lingering suspicion regarding the peace they'd fought for. They'd offered him a place to sleep for one night and an unchartered flight out of China to the destination of his choice with his weapons and his privacy, in exchange for the small favor of having saved all their lives during the war. It was when they'd asked him where he wanted to fly to that he'd been momentarily stumped.

Of course the logical course of action all along would have been to get in touch with the Preventers, talk to Une or whoever they'd put in charge, explain his circumstances, sign on the dotted line...

He would join the Preventers. He believed in their cause now and he was never tepid when it came to defending what he believed to be just. It was just that...he rather wondered where Heero was and if he was still looking for a partner. He'd had no news from the man, and he had no idea where he was, or even if he was still with the Preventers himself.

Instead of resting that night, he'd spent it hacking into the preventer's database, to see if he could find a trace of his former partner. Their computer security was good, and Wufei was not a master hacker like some. He'd not made much progress by the time dawn had started spilling light on the bed he'd not slept in. Then he had the idea of checking for back doors. In the time he'd worked with Yuy and Maxwell, he'd seen their MO and knew their habits. Of course, the Preventer database was not the same as an OZ system to be cracked and then left vulnerable for later needs.

He'd been rather surprised to find that it was.

It was one of Yuy's old back doors and passwords, the kind he'd put in discreetly so that the others could access an enemy system even if he wasn't available to help hack into it. The access didn't leave Wufei in super-user mode. He could get in to some lesser systems in Preventers, but nothing crucial that he could see. But it did connect him to something interesting, an entry isolated from all other preventer functions and accessible only through that login. A simple table with five entries.

That's when he learned that Heero was in Brussels. Yuy's entry was short and to the point; it had a cell phone number, a PO box (also in Brussels), and a curt line informing whoever accessed the table that he was working for the next two weeks in the IS dept of Preventer HQ. The entry had been updated a few days ago.

Wufei's hand had drifted to his cell, but he found himself checking the other entries first, delaying the call.

Duo was apparently on L2. There was a cell number, an address, and a cheerful if rather cryptic message: "Hi guys! I'm back from that cluster, wasn't much to salvage after all. I'm hoping to go out again soon though, Hilde's got a good lead on some stuff on the moon base. I'll update this when I do, and warn her Ladyship. 427-fucking-E, right guys? Well, I'll be in touch. Call me, Yuy! Apart from your little love notes in this database we don't hear from you." It had been updated two weeks ago.

Trowa's entry was similar to Heero's, a cell number, a PO box on L3, and a list of colonies and dates, some of which were in the future. It looked like an itinerary. Wufei noted absently that two of the destinations were the same, Duo's address; Trowa had been there three weeks ago and would be there next week as well.

Quatre's entry was simply a phone number, and an address on L4. Wufei was surprised there wasn't more information, considering the previous entries. His own entry - he'd not been surprised to find it - was the same, his cell number and his address in Hangzhou. Nothing more.

"Hey kid!" A fist had slammed against the door. "Time to rise and shine! If you want to get a flight out of here today, you're going to have to tell us-"

Wufei had opened the door before the second knock.

"Brussels," he told the wide eyes behind the fist, and closed the door again to catch a few hours sleep.

He'd arrived in Brussels thirty one hours later. He stored his bag and sword at the station instead of taking a hotel room. Logically he should pause and take stock, and illogically he wanted to charge ahead regardless. He headed into the center of town, towards the newly constructed HQ.

He'd still not made that call.

He sat in a coffee shop on the other side of the Platz, his eyes going over the building. His cell phone was on the table, staring at him as reprovingly as such an object could. Just one phone call...

Using Yuy's back door and his own hacking skills, he managed to bypass the security cameras on the service entrance. Then he waited until some over-busy caterer wedged the door open behind his plates of sandwiches, and simply walked in, shaking his head disapprovingly. They'd not put a checkpoint at this access, they were relying on the door lock and cameras alone. It didn't strike him as very serious security. He was disappointed that Heero would work in such conditions and not do anything about it. He'd detoured by a stock room to get the clipboard and important-looking envelope justifying his presence, nicked the visitor's badge from the secretary that tried to flirt with him instead of asking him what the hell he was doing there, then used the computer someone had imprudently left unlocked during lunch break to check the building plans for the systems room.

He walked casually down the halls, knowing that attitude was ninety percent of any disguise. Which was how Maxwell had managed to infiltrate so many objectives despite being a fresh-faced sixteen-year-old with a foot-long braid. No one looked at Wufei. Most of the cubicles and hallways were empty, people were at lunch.

He turned a corner leading to the IS department and found himself faced with a checkpoint. Well, sort of. A desk, a phone and a security guard who looked younger than he was. The young man stopped playing solitaire when he saw Wufei and looked up with the bored expectation of someone who is going to have to pay a minimum of attention to his job.

"Package for a Mr Yuy," Wufei said, walking right up to the desk. If Heero wasn't going by that name then things would get sticky and he wanted to be in arms reach of the man.

"Okay." The guard held out a hand. Wufei shook his head.

"Hands only, I'm afraid."

"What?"

"I have to deliver it to Mr Yuy himself. He needs to sign for it." He waved the clipboard at the guard like a talisman.

"Oh. Well, he may be at lunch, most people are." The guard - his badge said his name was S. Hewitt - looked longingly at his screen, then sighed and thrust a ledger at Wufei. "Sign here and I'll get someone to walk ya to the fridge. That's where he'll be, if he's anywhere."

Wufei signed 'Duo Maxwell' into the ledger while the guard placed a call, and looked up to find a portly sandy-haired man trudging up the long line of cubicles on the other side of the checkpoint.

"Yeah?" The man grunted at the guard.

Hewitt swiveled smoothly in his chair to look at him. "Courier for Yuy."

"He's in the fridge."

"Yeah, but the guy says he needs to sign off on this himself." Hewitt continued his smooth rotation until he'd made a nearly complete revolution that put him back in front of his game of solitaire.

"He hates to be disturbed," the fat man muttered, his look of annoyance tainted with a bit of reluctance.

The guard shrugged as he clicked away. The fat man glared at him, then gave Wufei a curt gesture to follow.

Wufei glanced at his watch. It was fifteen past noon. He'd been in the building twenty minutes. He'd brought the cameras down an hour ago. At some point surely someone would notice the security breach, and would ring an alarm. Then, assuming the checkpoint guard could tear himself away from his game of solitaire, he would be one of many checking his list of names against the building's entry records. Wufei's presence would be discovered shortly. He should have made that phone call...

"He's in here, unless he went to lunch," the fat man said; his badge had been flipped the wrong way around, as had his tie, and he'd not bothered to introduce himself to a courier. He stopped in front of a sealed door with a security keypad on it. He entered a few numbers - 48293, Wufei noted automatically, and rolled his eyes to the heavens - and opened the door a crack with something like trepidation, as if he expected a feral animal to leap out at him.

"He's in here, he's working," he whispered, reinforcing the impression. Wufei fought to keep a smirk from his face. Looked like Heero still had it.

The fat man swung the door open, hesitated, coughed, and then took two steps inside. Wufei waited a few seconds before following.

"Um, someone here for you. Courier. Needs you to sign for a package."

The room was rich with the hum of dozens of servers and stacks, their fans whisking away and purring in the aggressive cold of air-conditioning, lights blinking green and red under harsh neon. Heero's back was towards the door, but Wufei caught the tail end of a movement from his swivel chair. He'd probably glanced up as soon as he heard the door open. His fingers were flying over the keys again though, and the line of his shoulders was unfriendly. Wufei and the fat man waited a few seconds until it was obvious that Heero was not going to turn around.

"Um, he needs you to sign," the fat man repeated.

"In a minute," Heero said. Once more Wufei had to catch his smile at the familiar cold, dead tones and the fat man's wince as he looked at Wufei, embarrassed.

"He doesn't like to be disturbed," the fat man told him in a stage whisper which Yuy would have been able to hear from the other side of the room, not that the man would know this. Wufei's escort hesitated, then when Wufei leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, visibly willing to wait, he left with a shrug and closed the door behind him.

Wufei glanced around the server room idly then rested his eyes on the familiar back. Heero was wearing gray fatigues and a khaki-colored t-shirt, despite the coolant-scented biting air of 'the fridge'. His hair was a bit shorter in the back than when Wufei had seen him last. He wondered if he'd cut the bangs as well. Heero wasn't armed, as far as Wufei could see, though he could have a knife slipped into the steel-capped boots.

The fingers were flying over the keyboard in a clatter of noise to rival the hum and ratchet of the hard disks around them. Then the typing slowed and stuttered to a stop and the dark head came up, listening to the silence behind him that was not the one you'd expect from a normal person shifting around and getting bored fast.

"Yuy," Wufei said just as Heero started to spin around.

The back of the swivel chair bumped against the keyboard -

"Wu- ?!"

\- which clattered against the screen. Heero stared at him and that's when Wufei knew why he'd not made the call.

"Do I even want to know how you got in here and why they think you're a courier?" Heero asked, recuperating his impassivity with remarkable speed.

But in that instant of surprise...

"The security in this place is a joke."

\- wide eyes, a face that suddenly looked sixteen when it usually didn't, the hitch in the shoulders...

"I know. I've informed Une of this fact on several occasions."

\- the mouth that had lost its usual rigid line, the tone of the voice when it had gasped his name - his given name, Wufei noted with a shiver of curiosity and something like nervousness.

"Why don't you do something about it?"

Heero turned back towards the keyboard with a shrug. "Not my department. Give me five minutes." The clatter started again.

But that instant had given Wufei the answer he needed, to a question he'd been unable to ask even himself.

Heero's shoulders were locked and slightly hostile as he typed swiftly. He probably wasn't sure why Wufei was there, and the uncertainty was making him tense. There was no other indication that Heero was interested in seeing him after so many months or anything other than mildly annoyed.

But for an instant, because Wufei had surprised him, had shocked him out of the steel core he wrapped around himself and his emotions, Wufei had seen what Heero himself could not have put into words. Or maybe he had, once, when he'd been nearly comatose from sleep-deprivation. 'I never thought training with someone else would be of any value at all...But you despise distractions and mistakes. I didn't understand it to start with, your pursuit of improvement, of excellence, but I do now. I have even integrated it into my own overall mission plan.'

Wufei wondered if he should mind that the only time Heero let him know his presence wasn't just another annoyance was when the soldier was exhausted past caring or shocked to the core, and realized that actually he didn't care at all.

That slight give in the mask, which would never be repeated in words, that might not even be recognized consciously by its owner...it was good enough for Wufei. His tattered pride that had survived the war, Treize, the banishment from his clan and peace, would not have allowed him to ask Heero to resume their partnership if there had been any chance that he was imposing his flawed strength where it was not needed or wanted. But his presence was not an imposition. Knowing that, he could ask Heero to allow them to work together. Hell, he'd plead if Heero wanted to make him pay for those months' wait. The need was there and on either side, that was what counted.

Heero finally saved and turned again in his chair, leaning back against the small keyboard desk.

"Are you on a class break?" His eyes were cold and uncaring, running clinically up Wufei's frame to pin him with a stare.

Wufei took a breath, the cold air pinching his nostrils, the scent of plastic and air-conditioning flat and cloying.

"My clan has freed me from my obligations. I no longer have to study, I can choose my own career," he said simply.

Heero could have been carved in ice for all the effect that had. His control was absolute, as if to make up for the earlier slip.

"And why you are here?"

"To see if that offer you made me still stands."

They looked at each other, the silence humming around them.

"You want to join?"

"Yes. Do you still need a partner?" Wufei asked, politely framing the redundant question into words. He didn't think he'd have sensed what he had from Heero if the man had found an adequate replacement.

"...Yes." Heero's voice was non-committal, but the lines of his shoulders eased slightly.

They weighed each other some more, in silence, then Heero nodded, once.

"Acceptable. Let me finish here and we can-"

"You!" The voice was faint, muffled by the sealed door and diluted by the hum of servers. "Have you seen an annoying kid with a long braid and a grin about this big?"

Wufei and Heero exchanged glances, the latter definitely startled. They could hear the faint mutter of denial from someone else in the hallway.

The code on the door beeped. Wufei leaned back against the wall and moved sideways so that the opening door would shield him for a moment.

"Yuy!" A woman in uniform marched through the door, head swinging right and left in case any Maxwells were lurking around. "Did that infuriating friend of yours show up?"

Heero's eyebrows hitched and he glanced at Wufei in surprise, though the other person didn't catch the gesture. "Friend?"

"Maxwell. There can't be two Duo Maxwells in existence or else I'll resign. And retire to a nunnery somewhere. Him or someone using that name signed in a few minutes ago, said-" The woman finally glanced behind her, following Heero's gaze, and stuttered to a stop.

"Chang?!"

Wufei nodded once, trying not to appear overly defensive. The last time he'd seen this woman, she'd tossed him into a brig on the lunar base. Wufei wasn't sure of the sequence of events that had followed; he had a hard time believing she'd ended up being one of the motivating forces for peace, and head of the Preventers despite the fact she had a career sheet many a war criminal would envy and, last he heard, a few psychological flaws that would not allow her to hold a job in a burger joint in most places on earth and in space.

"What-...Did you-..."

"We tend to help ourselves to Maxwell's name on occasion, and I already told you the security on this building is ridiculous," Heero said dryly, figuring it out with his usual speed.

Une shot Heero a cold glance then turned back to Wufei. He found himself weighed down to the last atom. She might have become a fuzzy baa-lamb for peace, but she was still as sharp as a butcher's knife.

"Did you break into this building, Chang?"

"Yes." Wufei shrugged.

"Why?"

"I dropped by to say hello to Yuy," Wufei said, like one moves a pawn forward on the board.

Une smiled, a sweet, mature smile. Her voice was pure acid. "And you broke into the building to do this?"

"Yes," Wufei said and waited to see what she'd shoot back at him. In the background, Heero had scooted his chair sideways a bit so he could see both of them and was looking on with the interested air of a spectator at a ping pong match.

Une's smile curdled for an instant, then her eyes narrowed. The look became predatory. "Weren't you attending University somewhere in Asia?"

"Yes."

"So you just dropped by Brussels to say hello?" Une's eyes were unblinking and fixed on his pupils. He wondered just how sane she was these days. "Decided to see how your friend's job was going?"

"Something like that." This woman was going to be his boss, but he'd spent too long thinking of her as an enemy and Treize's minion, and the conflicting reflexes this elicited were making him cagey.

"Well then, maybe we could give you the grand tour. I think you'll like what we've been doing here, Chang. Our work here is important and very fulfilling. And since we're still a very new organization, there's no glass ceiling, plenty of room at the top in a few years time, when people who've been in it from the start will look at consolidating a career."

Wufei's eyes flicked towards Heero's with a very obvious 'what the hell?'

Heero's lips curved. "Commander Une has been having a hard time finding a partner for me," he said, his dull voice interrupting Une's calculated spin. "I think she's trying to tempt you into joining."

Une glared at Heero. "Thank you, Yuy, but I'd think you'd be just as interested as I am in getting another of you pilots here on a permanent basis."

Wufei opened his mouth, but wasn't allowed a say.

"Listen, Chang, let's discuss this, okay? I know you've got your future all worked out to your satisfaction - " she sounded very certain, as if she had been told this quite firmly before; Wufei shot Heero a glance, but the later gave away nothing "- and we don't actually have to make this a permanent arrangement, you could continue to study in your downtime. I'd be ready to guarantee adequate sabbaticals for any scholastic program you're willing to aim for. It will delay your graduation by a few years, but - "

"Really?" Wufei was surprised. They must be desperate for good agents.

"Yes!" Une pounced, misunderstanding his surprise. "And needless to say, the Preventers would cover the costs of your education, partly or in totality if you're willing to work towards skills we could integrate later. I don't want to pressure you, but maybe I could borrow a few hours of your vacation here to sit down and see if we could throw a few interesting ideas around. We can be very flexible. Barton and Maxwell have both come to satisfactory arrangements to-"

"Maxwell and Barton work for Preventers too?" Wufei's eyes flickered towards Heero again. How come he wasn't working with one of them?

"Only part-time, or on requirement to be exact." Une smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "As you see we're quite flexible. What's your schedule for today? Yuy, why don't you take the afternoon off, oh and tomorrow too. Show your friend here around Brussels, maybe give him a tour of the HQ, and-"

"I'd rather have a mission," Heero said. His eyes flicked towards Wufei, an eyebrow lifted in a question.

Une turned fully to stare at him, puzzled. "I don't have anything in the works for a solo op, Yuy, you know that."

"He's not solo anymore," Wufei said quietly, deciding that the satisfaction he'd get from toying with her further would not be worth the creepy feeling of Une trying to be nice to him.

Une looked from one to the other, and then nodded slowly. Her eyes were calculating, and Wufei thought she'd understood a great deal more than what had been said, and had figured him out faster and more accurately than his uncle Wai had. She caught on fast, he should not underestimate her.

"I see. Are you even going to ask me about salary package and health benefits, or are you going to -"

"Skip straight to the part where you tell me what the mission is."

Une looked at him steadily, then nodded again. "Good. I'm sure we'll settle the rest to your satisfaction. And I can see where you'll fit in to the organization." Her eyes had flickered to Heero. Wufei was ready to bet Yuy had not inquired about salary either when he decided to work for her. "Yuy, get the hell out of this computer room, that lazy tech we hired will have to do the job now, even if he takes four times as long. Why don't you show Chang here the _other_ office, while I get the paperwork ready. Where are you staying, Chang?"

"With me," Heero said, slipping smoothly into the slight hesitation her words had caused. Wufei nodded, knowing that only Heero would be able to read the stiff gratitude in the gesture.

"I'll fax the stuff over then. I need to make you jump through a few hoops, Chang, sorry about that, but this is an administration and there's only so much red tape I can cut through. I think I can slip you in to our evaluation tests tomorrow. Yuy will give you the rules and regs you need to know. I trust you can learn them as quickly as he did. You'll have a certification to pass eventually, and officially you'll be in Yuy's charge as trainee until you're done, but that's only what it'll say on your tax return. Uniform, medical, one last chance to pull out, and you and Yuy can be in the field by this weekend."

Wufei glanced at Heero. The latter did not seem surprised at the speed and slight taste of rule-bending Une was putting on display. The massive steel and glass edifice around them did not seem compatible with such alacrity. The marble ESUN symbol seemed too ponderous to cut red tape and get him out of what should be months of boring training.

"I think Yuy can give you a better idea of what to expect with us." He found Une watching him like a cat with its paws on either side of a single-exit mouse-hole. "It may not be quite what you expect. But I'm thinking you'll like it. If you have any concerns I'll be in my office, buried in paperwork and trying to perform miracles."

She spun on her heels and walked out. Wufei smiled slightly at the gesture; Une was no pushover. He'd have to ask Yuy how reliable she was these days though.

"Wait here a minute." Heero brushed past him. "I'll be right back. Try not to break into anything."

"I'll do my level best," Wufei told Yuy's back. He watched from the doorway as Heero caught up with his commanding officer, spun her around by the elbow - Wufei's eyebrow arched - and talked to her in a low voice. Last minute details, possibly. Heero's stance was slightly menacing. Une's eyes were like glass and her face was as impassive as her agent's.

Finally she left and Heero looked back at Wufei, a beckoning glance.

"What was that about?"

"Just making sure you have appropriate working conditions," Heero said curtly. "You didn't ask many questions."

"I didn't think I needed to." Now he was wondering.

"Don't worry about it, I took care of it. I'll show you around. Tell you what you need to know. Do you have a car?"

"No, I came by taxi."

"Good. Come on, we've got nearly an hour's drive ahead of us at this time of day."

"Where are we going?"

"To the office."

Wufei cast a quizzical look around them. Heero intercepted it and smiled ever so slightly.

"The other office."

 

Heero drove the nondescript car by the train station to pick up Wufei's sparse luggage, then headed off towards the outskirts of Brussels. Low-income high-rises gave way to industrial zones and cargo train yards. Wufei found himself hypnotized by the passing of one anonymous hangar after another. He couldn't even feel surprised that there was a second Preventer office in Brussels, or that it was in this unlikely area. His eyes squinted against the watered-down February sunlight, and he found them closing by themselves.

"You look tired." Heero was driving with serious attention, eyes darting to the rear-view mirror to make sure the completely empty road behind them was still free of enemy pursuit. Wufei was relieved he wasn't the only one for whom the war lingered like a bad habit.

"It was a very long trip," he acknowledged. "But I'll live. Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

Wufei tried to keep awake and distracted. He observed Heero through the corner of his eyes. His one-time ally had looked a bit taller when he'd brushed by Wufei in the computer room. His hair was shorter, but his bangs still fell over his face, hiding his eyes if he ducked his head just a little; Wufei suspected it was a defense mechanism that predated his days as a pilot. Heero was tanned and his skin was rougher than before; most of his missions must have been on earth and out of doors. He had a puckered pink scar across the back of his knuckles that looked new. A featureless denim jacket had been slipped over his t-shirt, but no weapon holster. He wore a thick, ugly chain around his neck with a couple of metal disks hanging from it that Wufei was itching to examine; they looked like dog-tags that were trying to seem less than military. He guessed the Preventers walked a fine line, being an armed force for peace, working in a world all too easily reminded of soldiers and take-overs and repression.

His intuition stirred. He'd been so intent on working with Heero, knowing that whatever Yuy would be doing would be worthwhile and certainly not boring; as a result he'd not actually thought much about the kind of work they would be doing. His uncle Wai's description of a policeman's job had been his vague template to date, and though he'd not been enthusiastic about parts of it, he now believed in the cause and would put up with the boring as well as the intense. He was beginning to wonder if he'd not made a few false assumptions though.

He followed a jetstream streak with his eyes and realized the shuttle at its end was in approach position. They must be near the spaceport/airport. 'A tempting target' his sleep-blurred mind whispered, and he caught himself with an inward wince and glanced around to distract himself. For the last five minutes they'd been driving alongside a high barbed-wire-topped fence with nothing but empty lots behind it. In the distance he could see some low hangars. Just as he was about to ask what this was, Heero pulled in at a check point in the fence. Wufei glanced at the steel plate bolted on to a concrete pillar, but the name of the place was a meaningless acronym. Heero nodded to the security detail, consisting of three men in a little hut, one of whom nodded back. From the way the light was reflecting off their windows, they were encased in concrete and plexiglass.

"Where are we?"

"Weapons disposal unit, for whatever hardware was not destroyed on return to MO2 at the end of the war. And there's a research block as well, to study any new things that might be developed. It's Preventer controlled."

"Ah. And this is where you work?"

"Not quite. I work in the underground facility beneath it, the one that's not on any map of the site. The one only a few people in ESUN and even Preventers know about."

Wufei leaned back against the seat and stared at the distant hangars. Heero didn't go through the checkpoint, he backed out and continued on down the road.

"Spec ops?" Wufei asked quietly.

"Of a sort. I think Une has it down as the Primary Intervention Division or such."

"You're right. I should have asked more questions."

"We're accountable," Heero said firmly. "And watched. And I watch," he added. Wufei found himself nodding. A black ops group could be the tool of tomorrow's oppression, but not on Heero's beat.

"What exactly is it that you do?"

"We take care of the fires."

"How?"

"Undercover work - but that's not my specialty." Heero suddenly turned the car into the dirt off the side of the road next to the barbed wire fence and the pock-marked desolate terrain behind it, and stopped the motor. His look when he turned towards Wufei was direct, serious. "The Preventers are a responsible organization, a policing force for peace. They are accountable to ESUN, and they have the legal authority to conduct arrests. The trials are held at the world nation's courts in Luxemburg and Mumbai. It's all above ground for the most part."

"For the most part," Wufei said, with a 'here it comes' voice.

"But before the young fresh-faced recruits go in and arrest people, before the detectives and forensics move in to do their job, before the lawyers and the right to remain silent...Before all that we're facing all degrees of military level opposition and we're not a military organization that can respond in kind. Une needs someone who can crack open a situation and allow the more conventional forces in. Someone-"

"-who's fought a war, knows what it's like to be heavily out-gunned, and who's not afraid of getting his hands dirty."

"You in, Chang?"

"I already said I was." Wufei didn't hesitate. "I can't even say I'm all that surprised, you wouldn't be good with paperwork, donuts and public relations, Yuy."

"We've managed to skip the last two." Heero scowled at the road, where a pigeon pecked at something on the other lane. "But we're policed, and there's paperwork. Granted, not many people have the security levels to look at it, but there's paperwork." His voice was as neutral as ever, but Wufei had the distinct impression this was the least liked aspect of the job.

"Drive on, Yuy." Wufei leaned back against in the seat and put his hands behind his head. "Weren't you going to show me your office?" he added as Heero pulled away from the curb.

"We'll do a quick tour tomorrow. Une needs to get your authorization through to them first. All five of us are on a watch list for any kind of secure installation and our prints and retinal scans are on file," Heero said as if this was perfectly normal.

"How did they get my retinal-...lunar base. They kept the OZ prison records."

"Hai. You won't get past the lobby without Une's direct approval."

Wufei made a small 'hmph' noise.

"Please don't try to break into this building," Heero added sarcastically. "You won't be able to."

"Oh really?"

"I try myself every so often and so far I've only gotten past the first level."

"Oh."

"There's not much to see anyway. I don't actually have an office. Like most agents I spend most of my time in the field or at home. There's five underground stories, most of them offices and IT systems for the surveillance division. For us field operatives there's a bunch of wired desks available if we need them. Most of the time I work in the computer room. There's a weapons depot - are you armed?"

"Luger in my duffel."

"Registered?"

"It was when I took it off the corpse of some OZ officer on the lunar base, does that count?"

"We'll get you sorted with something a bit more legal. There's a huge information gathering service; Sally Po and Lucrezia Noin work for that branch, I see them occasionally. Then there's what you'd expect: a small clinic, holding cells, interrogation rooms - no, not that kind."

Wufei tried to release the sudden tension that had touched him like a live wire. "Not that kind...but don't tell me that you get the bad guys all the way into the great 'secret base' and then let them make a phone-call to their lawyer."

"We're not the police, but there is a judicial representative present at every interrogation and we're not allowed to violate the constitution. Much. Actually it walks a fine line, but we draw it at truth serums, and only with approval."

"The rubber hose and electric shock methods are passé, are they?" Wufei tried to sound sardonic, but his voice was flat in his own ears. Memories lingered in his mind like the taint of bile in his mouth.

"I'll let you read our charter when we get to my place. If you have any concerns-"

Wufei interrupted him with an abrupt gesture. Part of him was not surprised, possibly reassured that the world still worked the way it always had. Even as a small part of him was also disappointed.

"Where are we?" He glanced around as the car stopped again. They were in an area of small industrial lots backing up to the barbed wire of the huge base. There was a long-term storage facility taking up most of the lot, a small workshop that made prosthetics according to the sign on the wall, and an empty run-down hangar. Most of the buildings around them seemed deserted; the last year of war had hit all earth economies hard.

"My place." Heero stepped out of the car and went to grab his laptop's bag in the backseat.

"Where?" Wufei asked, nonplussed.

For answer Heero headed towards the prosthetics shop. Wufei belatedly got out of the car and followed, in time to see Heero unlock a steel door with what appeared to be very adequate locks on it.

The workshop was a big empty space with a high ceiling. Dusty light fell through plastic windows high up on the walls. It had been stripped of any signs of its previous function. It didn't take Wufei any time at all to figure out why Heero lived here, apart from the fact that it was five minutes away from the gate they'd passed on their way over. The space had been sectioned off and each part was neatly and efficiently laid out.

The area closest to the door was a training center. The concrete was covered in a spring-board setup that must have taken Heero a considerable amount of work, but gave a good, elastic surface to work on that wouldn't damage the joints. There were neatly ordered weights and a bench off to one side, a punching bag hanging from the high ceiling by a thick chain; Wufei looked at it with some sympathy, it was already lumpy and sagging at the seams and he had a feeling it wasn't the first one Heero had owned either. Outside of the spring-boarded area there was weight lifting equipment and a rower, with elastic matting beneath them.

"Don't the Preventers have a gym?" Wufei asked as he followed Heero to the right hand wall.

"Yes," Heero said curtly. He didn't say anything else though; Wufei suspected that Heero did not like to show his superior training and skills where anyone else could see. Paranoia, discretion or a desire for privacy; Wufei could understand them all.

Next to the slapped-together dojo, the floor was concrete that stretched to the back of the workshop where a big service door led to the loading area, Wufei guessed. There were several worktops and counters in this area, with engine parts and a bike which Wufei looked at it with interest. Tools hung in regimental order from the wall. It looked like a mechanic's shop. Wufei wondered if there was a Gundam lurking under a tarp outside the door.

On the right hand side of the space, what had once been a small lunch room had been remodeled into a very rough kitchen, with metal racks and a free-standing sink. An electrical cooking ring, a plug-in kettle and a microwave sat side by side on a crude metal-top counter. A small fridge had been placed beneath it. Wufei spotted a few cardboard boxes piled up next to the counter, decorated with a brand name that made him shudder; dry rations, the kind he'd have won the war just to avoid eating ever again. Heero pulled out the single stool at a second high metal-topped counter at right angle to the first, in an invitation to sit. Wufei did so, letting his duffel slip heavily from his shoulder. He was getting tired, he'd not had much opportunity to sleep in the last three days. He watched blindly as Heero plugged in the kettle, then glanced around. The ceiling over the kitchen area was half as high as in the workshop area, and some stairs led upwards nearby. There was probably a small second story to the place. Offices or storage rooms, probably where Heero now slept.

"Tea? No, you'll want to sleep soon." Heero was standing at one of the racks of provisions, fingering a plain mug he'd picked up and looking through packages. "I seem to recall you're not fond of energy drinks. I've got fruit juice-"

"Tea is fine." When he lay down, nothing was going to stop him from sleeping.

Two functional mugs were placed on the counter near the kettle. Heero leaned back against it and looked at him while the water started to hiss behind him.

"Are you hungry?"

Wufei gave the boxes of rations an unenthusiastic glance.

"I've got some leftovers in the fridge. Chanko nabe from the oriental deli downtown."

"That'll do." It was three in the afternoon but what the hell.

Heero moved to place a tupperware in the microwave. A few minutes later a cup of tea, the crude breakfast stuff, and an aluminum plate full of vegetables, fish balls and chicken were placed in front of him, with two plastic chopsticks. Heero went back to lean against the counter to sip his tea. There was only the one stool.

"Thanks. For putting me up, too," Wufei muttered as he picked up the chopsticks. His stomach felt hollow, but his appetite was lacking. "I could have stayed in a hotel."

"There aren't any nearby," Heero said with a shrug. "And you'll have a busy day tomorrow. This is more practical."

"Hm." The leftovers weren't all that bad, but the tea was awful. Wufei sipped it anyway, too strung out to care much, his attention elsewhere.

"How was university?" Heero asked. Above his cup, his eyes looked faintly curious.

"Educational."

"I gathered that was what it was for."

"I didn't mean the classes. Those were mostly boring. Talking of which, how long am I going to be a trainee?"

Heero had been politely waiting for him to finish his meal before talking about more serious matters but Wufei wanted to deal with it while he was still more than half-awake.

Eyes on the rower in the training section, Heero shrugged. "Normally the technical and legalistic aspects take six months of training before the candidate takes a test. I'd estimate you'll be ready for it in three weeks, though you'll be out in the field with me until you do, we won't waste your time. Of course, if you'd-... "

Wufei looked up from his plate at the way Heero had abruptly interrupted himself. "Yes?"

Heero hesitated, then said dryly. "If you'd joined right from the start of the organization, before any of the rules were set and the heads of ESUN were still desperate, you could have avoided a lot of crap. I was given the certification on the second day, along with some very illegal ID that says I'm officially Heero Yuy born on an L1 colony eighteen years ago, with no criminal record and a clean bill of health."

Wufei waited, but nothing more was forthcoming on the subject. He didn't think his first refusal or any of the wasted months since then would ever be mentioned again.

"Is the fact I'm a sixteen year-old ex-terrorist going to be a problem?" Wufei finally asked.

"No, not much. Une will do what needs to be done, though the age thing might be annoying for a year or two. But she'll get you to work for her if she has to swear in court that you're her long-lost elderly uncle. She's been frantic about finding me a partner. We're meant to be watched and accountable so a partner is pretty much an obligation for the more delicate operations."

"And what? You, Sally and Noin are the only people working in this Intervention Division?"

"Oh no, there are many agents."

"They all ex-OZ?" Wufei hazarded, he'd been wondering if that would be a problem.

"Many are, but there are others. Une's been trying out a few as partners for me, but it was a waste of time."

Wufei looked at him in surprise over the rim of his cup. "Why?"

"They were inadequate."

Well that was a given, Wufei thought, but he was surprised that Heero had not made some effort to get along with them if this was the only way he could get out on the field. "Come on, Yuy, you put up with Maxwell for many of your missions during the war."

Heero stared back at him, body language expressing amazement. "Maxwell? Duo Maxwell was a good soldier, a dedicated Gundam pilot and a reliable ally."

Wufei felt his jaw drop in surprise.

Heero's eyes narrowed almost accusing. "You have no idea, do you."

"What, that you're carrying a torch for Maxwell? No, I admit I had no-"

"Baka! I meant, what it's like working with someone norm- who wasn't a Gundam pilot." Heero raked a hand through his bangs. "Maxwell was brash, and a distraction when we weren't on a mission, but that's in context. Compared to the people Une tried to get me to work with, there's no comparison."

Wufei thought back to his partnership with Heero during the war and had an inkling of what he meant. He would be an impossible act to follow for someone who'd not been cast in the same fire. Heero would not slow down now just because they'd won the war. It wasn't his nature.

It wasn't Wufei's either.

Blue eyes and black locked. For a few long seconds.

"There are two empty rooms upstairs, the old offices. You can use them as a bedroom and a study."

The abrupt statement would have floored anybody who had not had that eye contact previously. A whole understanding had been hammered out between them in an instant. They were back on Peacemillion, all extraneous matters and distractions and conventions cut out to leave the bare bones. It was more efficient for Wufei to live with his partner and near the 'office', so that was the way it would be.

There was just one last gray area, and Wufei actually wanted to have a verbal conversation on this one point because the question between them was hazy and unclear, and this was something they both had to agree on. He pushed the half-empty plate from him, picked up his tea-cup, licked his lips, hesitated.

"There need be no other obligation to you staying here," Heero said. His voice was abrupt, but Wufei noted the open-endedness of the 'need be'.

"Have you come to an arrangement with someone?" Wufei asked slowly, dragging the subject out into the open.

Heero glanced at him swiftly. "No. I've not had much time. Or need."

Wufei thought he understood that. It was the same conclusion he'd come to at ZJU. There were no more pressures of war. The need for sexual relief could be controlled and squashed, and the distraction it cost would not be life-threatening. It was simpler than the alternative. He found himself nodding.

"Well, if ever the need does arise, we know how to take care of it," he said shortly.

Heero stared at him, weighing him. It reminded Wufei of the look he'd been given so long ago, right before the arrangement had first been suggested. A bit less sure of itself maybe.

"I thought you'd be more interested in a heterosexual relationship."

"Yes, I would be," Wufei said dryly, after a moment of reflection. "But I will not compromise myself, my performance or my goals for a piece of skirt. If I wanted a woman, or a family, I'd have stayed where I was. I want-...you know what I want. That doesn't work with a woman I'd leave behind for months on end, and I don't want an emotional attachment anyway. We're the same on this, Yuy; the battle comes first. No emotions, no distractions. That leaves me all of one option as far as I can see. Yes, I'd rather it be a woman, that's more my inclination, but unless you're willing to go through some rather complicated surgery, that's not going to happen, is it?"

"Surg-" Heero nearly dropped his cup. Wufei smirked at the wide eyes, the startled face. Twice in one day, I better cut down or I'll give him a heart-attack, he thought dryly while part of him realized he liked this; he enjoyed catching Heero Yuy off guard, in the same way he enjoyed pinning him to the ground when they sparred, or surprise him with a particularly vicious move. It was their way. They didn't pull their punches, that was not how it worked. That was not how they wanted it to work. They stood back to back against the enemy, and when there was no enemy they were each other's rival, their reason to keep on striving to improve even more. There was no room for comfort, consideration, affection; they were traps in the same way as one's emotions.

"That...would not-..." Wufei had the rare privilege of seeing Heero Yuy hesitate and fish around for his words.

"It was a joke, Yuy." And it must have really caught you short if you didn't realize it, Wufei added mentally, giving the growing scowl a pleasant look in return.

"You finished with that?" Heero asked a bit sourly as he nodded towards the half empty plate.

"Yes, thank you."

"I'll let you sleep then. Don't worry, I'll clean up." He took the plate from Wufei's hands. "You need to rest if you're going to be evaluated by Foxwood tomorrow. I hope you haven't gotten soft sitting on a school bench."

"Shall I show you?" Wufei's eyes darted towards the spring-boarded dojo.

Heero looked like he was about to object, but then he must have remembered the surgery crack because he put the plate in the sink with a thump and turned towards the practice mat with a smirk promising a dessert of pain and humiliation.

 

 

Wufei showered in the bathroom which Heero had obviously constructed himself from the old workshop's lavatory. The shower was cheap plastic and the water didn't run fast. Wufei soaped off the sweat; not much he could do about the bruises. Despite his katas he had lost a bit of his edge in his months at the university and Heero had obviously enjoyed showing him how much. Wufei ha'd put up a good fight though. Heero would not have any doubts about taking him on as a partner.

He slipped on a pair of sweatpants Heero had tossed him - a burst of memory of a shower in Italy, but he put that thought back where it belonged. The arrangement...well, if the need arose they knew where they stood now, but it was all still a bit too new, too raw for...Besides he was tired.

"I can use the sleeping bag, you know," he muttered for the third time, as he saw Heero come out of his room with the balled up sheets from his bed.

"It needs airing out. I'll use it tonight. I've got work to do this afternoon, I'll be downstairs." It was an innocuous sentence, but it reminded Wufei of the old safe-house routine; sleeping in shifts, one to watch the other's back, making sure they knew where they both were in case of attack. Wufei shook himself mentally, that was the past. He'd been sleeping quite well on his own for the past four months. Well, fairly well.

The sheets and cover on the military camp bed were thrown back. He should probably consider himself lucky that Heero didn't sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. Or a bed of nails for that matter, Wufei thought sarcastically, eying the rest of the room. He wasn't sure of its previous purpose, it was too big to be an office; maybe a main work area or a store room. Heero's small bed was up on one side beneath a window that had plastic sheeting taped to it, blocking out the sunlight. One corner was slightly lifted, probably to keep an eye on the back loading lot, Wufei was ready to bet, just as he was quite sure the whole place was thoroughly wired for security. There were metal shelves holding clothes, shoes, a few books, some odds and ends, and on one end was a cheap metal desk and filing cabinet, with a second PC, a small stack, a hub and docking station for the laptop. Heero had given him a very brief tour; the other two rooms on this floor were empty, small offices, thoroughly cleaned by the present occupant and used for storage. They'd make livable rooms, Wufei judged. He was surprised Heero wasn't using one of them for a study, but he obviously found it more efficient to live all in the one room.

Wufei glanced out the window through the lifted corner of the sheeting. There was a wheel-less old car outside, resting on cinder blocks, either a wreck come ashore in this beaten down industrial zone or a project Yuy was working on. There was a conspicuous absence of Gundams though.

He slipped between the rough sheets as Heero came in to grab a keyboard and mouse from the desk. "Where's Wing?" Wufei asked on the steps of his last thought.

Heero stopped moving, staring at the wall. Then he turned slowly, but didn't look at Wufei.

"I destroyed it," he said softly.

It was like a blow to the chest, like learning a friend's lover had died. Wufei found himself on the verge of giving his condolences, and managed to stop himself.

"Oh...I-..." I can't believe you did that. "Did Une make you?" The question slipped out before he could even think about it, reason momentarily mobbed by surprise.

"No, it was a conscious decision. We agreed that-"

"We?!"

"...Yes. Deathscythe, Heavyarms and Sandrock were also destroyed."

"I can't believe it." The words tumbled out numbly. In his shocked mind, a breath of fear; we're working without a net now.

"Hn." Heero turned swiftly towards the door as if he didn't want to talk about the subject any more.

"We're still needed though. More than ever now. It's good you're here."

The door closed on those curt words. Wufei's eyes lingered on it until they started to close. His mind followed Heero's silent footsteps down to the rebuilt workshop, sitting at the kitchen counter, drinking tea out of the cheap mugs, working on his laptop.

He glanced around the bare room and found himself smiling slightly, letting the shock ebb. Just so...Yuy. Why did he feel more at ease in this- this shed than in the elegant apartment in Hangzhou?

Because it didn't pretend to be something it wasn't, like a home.

I'm out on the edge again, the thoughts drifted through his mind as it plunged into exhausted sleep. The slight exhilaration of the thought followed him down into the darkness. He was where he belonged.


	14. Chi, Part I

It takes hundreds of reincarnations to bring two people to ride on the same boat...  
\--- Mandarin Proverb

 

Wufei woke up in darkness, but unlike all those nights in Hangzhou he knew instantly where he was. A thin line of yellow light drew the separation between the window's edge and the plastic taped to it, evidence of a streetlight outside. It was a rod of luminescence hanging in darkness, illuminating nothing. He waited several minutes, but his eyes couldn't get used to so little light. No matter, he remembered where every object in the sparsely furnished room was. He got out of bed, felt for the wall and walked silently to the door. The wave of harsh neon in the bathroom momentarily blinded him. He made as little noise as possible; Heero would be curled up in the sleeping bag in one of the spare rooms and the man napped like a cat.

He felt for each step in the dark, aiming for the gray slice of light at the bottom of the flight of stairs. Streetlight shone from the high-placed plastic windows, furnishing the big space in blue and gray shadows. Hunting around near the entrance he found the main switch and neon crackled to life. The big room flickered into existence by chunks, each as practical and unlovely as the next.

As the kettle started to boil, he glanced over the open laptop on the table. A note hung on the screen when he clicked a key.

'Test with Foxwood at 13:00 local. We'll go in to the office at 10:00 local to get papers signed and a medical. Here's a link to our charter and the essential rules and regulations you need to know before we can be out in the field.'

It was 4AM. Wufei scowled unhappily at the bags of foul-tasting black tea, then prepared his cup, sat at the counter and clicked on the link. He glanced over the information as he sipped the bitter liquid as quickly as possible. He had a few hours before Heero would wake up, might as well put them to good use.

But first...

He tossed out half the tea, rinsed out the cup and put it on the sink's small metal draining board. Then he went over to the training area, which he thought of as the dojo, though it wasn't enclosed, well oriented or particularly venerable. He smiled with pleasure at the feel of the springboard beneath his feet; Yuy must have spent ages setting it down and getting it just right, but it was a job worthy of a pro. Its edges were ragged and bare, showing the construction details of the floor beneath, and Heero hadn't bothered to cover it with matting or anything other remotely aesthetical, but it was infinitely better than concrete. During their bout yesterday it had almost been a pleasure to be slammed down on it. Repeatedly. He winced, a few bruises recognizing the floor too. He had to get back into shape. He stood at the center of the area, arms hanging loose, body poised.

Breathe. In. Out.

He felt the air travel through his body, relaxing it, cleansing. It seemed to move his arms by itself, up into fists at his side, then flowing into first form.

Now.

 

 

Heero didn't give him a tour of the 'other' office, the ops center as he called it. It was mostly underground and didn't look like much even from the inside. Une having done her work on his authorization, Wufei was whisked through the lobby and shunted into a small windowless box-like office to wait for the clinic's head to see him, and fill out forms. It took longer than either had anticipated, Heero giving the paperwork a well-remembered death scowl. This impressed the secretary but didn't cause the paper to spontaneously combust, much to Wufei's disappointment. He was still slipping on his t-shirt after the medical, jacket clutched in one hand, when Heero dragged him from the building, hustled him into a jeep borrowed from a guard at the ops center, and drove off across the wasteland of the Weapons Disposal Unit grounds.

After five minutes of dirt track and potholes, Heero pulled up in a squeal of breaks at a big building with a dome-shaped roof. Further buildings could be seen a hundred meters away, surrounded by a low wall and large freight containers. Wufei spotted an open shooting range, and a depot with a removable roof, like those used for Aries.

"Training center," Heero grunted, shoving Wufei inside the building where they'd parked. It was two minutes to one. "Stay here and I'll go get the weapons."

"Weapons?" Wufei asked the door that had just shut behind him. What kind of test was this going to be?

He looked around the empty building. It seemed to be a gym. Training and weight-lifting equipment sat unused off to one corner. A central area with a lot of matting had charts of strike points on the walls. Probably an arena to teach hand-to-hand combat.

He turned quickly at the sound of footsteps on the dusty path outside. It wasn't Heero's light tread; the steps were heavier. They thumped down with authority in thick boots, the kind of footsteps that made Wufei's hackles rise and his hand creep to his belt, not that he was armed yet. He faced the door and straightened out of his defensive stance. The war was over.

"Good god, I thought they drew the line at recruiting them out of kindergarten."

The man who'd entered was not that much taller than Wufei, though he was probably three times his age. He was barrel-chested and thick around the waist, but his legs and arms under the Preventer uniform were more muscled than flabby. He stopped a few feet away from Wufei, legs apart, head titled to the side. His skin was the rich dark of coffee grounds, his eyes were even darker, swimming with red veins and yellow spots. His nose was strong, the nostrils well-defined as if stuck in a perpetual sniff. He had a small scar on one corner of his upper lip, a dark stain on his skin. Pockmarks shadowed his cheeks. He was almost entirely bald, bar a slight gray ghost of hair lingering around his crown.

"So I guess they don't even make uniforms this small, uh? You _are_ my 1 o'clock, right?" The man was looking dubiously at a page on a flip-chart and toying with a pencil.

"Yes," Wufei replied shortly. Letting the other choose which question that answered.

The man slowly raised his eyes again and this time the look was very sharp and weighing. Wufei stood perfectly still in his borrowed clothes; the commissioner had indeed taken one look at him and not even bothered checking through his racks of uniforms, grabbing a tape measure and a special order's form instead. Wufei was dressed in his black top under a thick jacket, and a pair of fatigues he'd borrowed from Heero that morning. The latter had told him he didn't need a uniform for the test or indeed for their job, which was for the most conducted in street clothes or anonymous fatigues. The uniform was necessary for court appearances and funerals, and Heero had pointed out he'd rather Wufei avoid either for now.

The man snorted softly and scratched the pen against his scarred cheek.

"Name?" he asked as if he doubted it would match the one on his clipboard.

"Chang, Wufei."

"Hmmm. You here to do a preliminary inscriptions test?" His voice was gravelly and rich with what sounded like a British accent. It was made for annoyance and world-weary cynicism.

"I'm not sure." Wufei shrugged. Heero hadn't actually told him much of what he'd be tested on, they'd been too busy trying to fill in the paperwork creatively: avoiding too many mentions of the past year's activity for example, following Une's recommendations, and trying to get in touch with his uncle Wai on L5 for a few signatures as his legal guardian. Wufei had read most of the ground rules this morning, memorizing them with the ability to retain loads of useless information that he'd mastered back in his school days, so he should be able to answer any questions if he was tested on that.

"Doesn't say much here," the man grumbled as if this was Wufei's fault. "I don't see what else it could be. I have a score of cadet hopefuls coming in two days from now, don't know why this had to be done today. And I have the full assault team standing by...waste of time...and made them skip lunch." His mutters kept fading to low grunts. "Right. Chang?"

"Yes."

"I am a consultant for the Preventers," the man said, and Wufei immediately understood that the word 'consultant' had been used just to get the man out of the hierarchy and the official chain of command, but that he was firmly ensconced in the black ops section. "In case you're wondering why this still allows me to order you around and call you a newbie or a kindergartener, keep in mind that I spent more years than you've been alive working in the London Met Police Armed Division and Specialist Operations team, both as officer and as CO." 

Ah, a cop, Wufei thought; authority but not military, his guts had been telling him.

"My name is Sam Foxwood. Note that is short for Samir, not Samuel, though of course you will address me as Foxwood or Sir. The only people who can call me Sam are people my age who have several decades of service under their belt -"

"Hello Sam."

"Or Yuy here, who's a bit of an except-...ion...Yuy? What the blazes are you doing here?"

Heero put down the cases he was carrying on a table to one side and glanced back at Foxwood. "I'm here to assist Chang for his tests."

"Assist?! A newbie?! What-"

Foxwood's dark eyes went from Heero to Wufei and then back again a couple of times, then he said: "Oh. Right."

Wufei kept the smirk off his face.

"So." Foxwood was scowling as he flipped through the papers clipped to his chart. "I guess that means you can fire a weapon and handle a suit."

"Can we go straight to the combat test?" Heero was rapidly field-stripping a gun in the background, the Yuy equivalent of twiddling his fingers in boredom. Wufei felt a prickle of anticipation. Combat test? But Foxwood scowled.

"Let's do this properly. If putting teenage ex-terrorists in charge of public safety can be said to be in anyways proper," he added with a sniff. Wufei's widened eyes flicked towards Heero, but the latter did not react.

"So, guns, we'll give you that one. Suit controls and simulation, ditto. Endurance-"

"If we do an endurance test, we won't be able to take the combat test afterwards, not today," Heero pointed out crisply.

"We do things in order, Yuy." Foxwood responded sharply while still looking at Wufei. "Hope those boots are comfy, kid, I'm going to have you running laps until you start to slow down. If you're too tired to do the combat test after the endurance, we'll-"

"He won't be too tired, but by the time Chang drops half his speed in an endurance test, it'll be closing time for the training facilities," Heero said impatiently. "Besides, the sun sets at around five, he'll run out of light."

Foxwood looked like he wanted to challenge that, but then he glanced sideways at Wufei, assessing, and grunted. "I'll give you that. He looks pretty weedy but then so do you, Yuy, and I know you'd be here until tomorrow morning. That leaves-... hand-to-hand."

"He can take me down one time out of two," Heero said matter-of-factly as he started going through the ammo.

Foxwood stared at his clipboard fixedly for a few seconds then drew a careful tick. "Moving right on," he muttered.

"Is there anything left?" Heero tossed a gun at Wufei who caught it with a frown. It wasn't like Yuy to be careless with a weapon. Then he looked at it a bit closer, checking the charger.

"We're going to be playing a game of paintball?" he asked in some disgust.

"You prefer we use real bullets?" Foxwood's laugh was more like a bark. "No, don't answer that," he added, sobering suddenly. He leaned over his clipboard again. "Well I guess we can go straight to the combat simulation, Chang, since your buddy here is raring to go. Get into position, Yuy, you got ten minutes."

Heero nodded sharply and left without a backward glance, grabbing goggles, helmet and a flak jacket on the way out. He used a small side door that lead towards the distant hangars and wall.

"Know how to use one of these?" Foxwood was unwrapping a comm unit from a plastic bag. Wufei gave him a heavy 'of course' look.

"Good. Calibrate it to 180." He felt Foxwood's eyes on him as he set up the unit and then clipped it to his belt, fitting the small ear piece into his ear and the throat mike around his neck. "Right, here's the situation. Yuy and you have been tracking some gunrunners. Intel says there are ten of them. They are in those hangars over there."

Wufei nodded, looking out the window at the hangars a hundred meters away. They were surrounded by low stone walls and big metal containers and boxes. Not much cover, but once inside the area, things might be different. 

"Armament?" he asked, weighing his approach.

"The usual."

"What's the usual, Tauruses, Leos or dolls?" Wufei asked a bit acidly.

Foxwood was silent for a moment. "I meant, submachine and handguns, Chang."

"Oh."

"They might have grenades. Plaster ones of course, since we don't want to blow up our own operatives before they get out on the field."

"Anything else?"

"Yes." Foxwood was glaring at his clipboard as if it could be blamed for all his grief. "You and your partner have found the gang, and your intel is that they will leave within two hours via shuttle. Let's hear your plan of attack."

"Go in on either side under cover, get into the farthest hangar - " he'd spotted what looked like a fake runway over there " - keep them from the shuttle until reinforcements arrive." By killing or wounding every one of them preferably. Simplest way. Someone who can't walk can't run away either.

Foxwood was ticking things on his clipboard again. Wufei reined in his impatience and temper. The man was just doing his job. The scowl on Foxwood's face was not regulation, but Wufei did not require him to be pleasant. He probably had something against Gundam pilots. This would be an attitude Wufei would meet time and again, might as well get used to it.

"Okay. What happens if your partner gets shot?"

"Yuy? Get shot?" Wufei asked a bit sarcastically. When Foxwood glared at him he shrugged. "Cover for him, inasmuch as possible."

"What?" Foxwood said after a few seconds of silence. "You wouldn't evacuate your partner?"

"Eva- do you _know_ Yuy? If I dropped the mission and tried to evacuate him, he'd shoot me himself!"

Foxwood's eyebrows arched, pulling the faded skin around his eyes upward. "You know this for a fact?"

"I've partnered him before, if that's what you mean."

"Have you now? I thought you boys worked solo during the war."

"No," Wufei answered shortly, not wanting to go into details for this stranger.

Foxwood shrugged and made a further tick. He was looking almost as cross as Wufei by now. The L5 ex-pilot - who'd seen more fighting than this man even if latter had been Special Ops - was hoping that whatever negative report Foxwood made, Une would know his real worth.

"One final question," Foxwood growled, as if setting the last nail in the coffin. "A first approach indicates the runners have half a dozen hostages, the crew of the factory where they've gone to ground. What do you do?"

Wufei stared at him, bemused. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and bit off: "I'd call the police."

Foxwood's pencil froze over the clipboard. Old eyes slowly rose towards Wufei's.

"I'm not a goddamn hostage negotiator," Wufei snapped. "I'd rather shoot the bastards than talk with them anyway. I'd call in the special intervention squad from the local district. That's their job. If they need a hand taking the enemy down after the hostages are released, then I can-"

"You." Foxwood cleared his throat. "Are you going to be partnering Yuy? Is that the idea here?"

"Yes." If you don't fail me.

For the briefest instant, a smile flashed across Foxwood's face and he looked older - his grin pushing the wrinkles up into his eyes and across his forehead - but a good deal more approachable. The look was gone in an second, but it left Wufei startled and off-balance.

"From what I know of him, you won't be helping the squad, you'll be sitting on your partner to stop him from charging in and risking the hostages' lives like last time he took this test - " Wufei stared at him wildly " - but that's real life. In this test, you do not have access to the police. It's just you and Yuy. So, what do you do?"

Wufei ground his teeth, his arms tightening across his chest. "Go in, secure the hostages, take down as many of the enemy as possible-"

"We prefer the term perpetrator, or suspect even. We also prefer them alive," Foxwood slipped in smoothly, but his former aggression seemed to have evaporated, he looked like he was willing to let a few casualties slide.

"- and let Yuy stop the shuttle from lifting off." Wufei added.

Foxwood looked at him for a good ten seconds, his pencil tapping his lip. Then he nodded slowly and made a tick.

"Okay, grab a jacket, helmet and goggles. These are high velocity dumdums with a paint pocket to mark impacts, so needless to say, don't aim for the head, aim for their flak jackets. You ever do this before?"

"Do you mean shoot people? Or pretend to shoot people?"

"Use this type of bullet."

"No, I can quite honestly say I never have," Wufei sneered, automatically voiding the charger, checking the ammo, the chamber, then flicking the pieces back together once he'd made sure no live bullet had snuck in by mistake.

"Well trust me, they do more than sting if you catch them somewhere you're not protected. I will fail you if you remove those goggles or helmet. Got that?"

"Yes sir."

Foxwood tapped the pencil against his lip again. His eyes were deep and unreadable, and Wufei had had Heero to practice on so that was saying a lot. He wondered suddenly if Foxwood hadn't done his share of hostage negotiation during his stint as the special ops' CO.

Then the brief grin flashed again.

"Call me Sam. Get the hell out of there, Yuy will have started without you already. Here's a map of the area, and the cross here is your partner's starting point. Good luck."

 

 

Fools. It was running through Wufei's mind as his feet hit the dusty dry ground, torn up by jeep tracks, truck ruts and old bomb strikes.

Foxwood probably wasn't as bad as he first thought, though it was hard to tell; he was exceptionally hard to read. He suspected the initial hostility had been at the idea of 'another teenage ex-terrorist' going into situations with guns blazing. Anger pooled in Wufei’s mind, though he kept it carefully cauterized, concentrating on his surroundings. Nonetheless...Fools! The old man and, hell, even Une, they had no idea. They had the perfect weapon in their hand and they didn't even know how to use him.

His mind ran over what Foxwood had said and what he hadn't said. The mission, according to Foxwood, was to take down the gunrunners, stop them from leaving. The charter Wufei had read that morning stressed that there was no negotiating with terrorists, though all possible care should be taken to protect the safety of civilians.

They just never weighed the fact that to a soldier like Yuy, the mission and 'all possible care' didn't balance out! Of course Heero went in there with maximum force and damn the hostages during his test if Foxwood had presented the mission in the same way as he had to Wufei. Heero had never let the presence of innocents stop him from doing his job, or he'd never have been able to do anything at all. Heero thought in straight lines, then and now. Mission first; reducing civilian casualties preferable but not essential. Black and white, no gray areas at all.

It was his strength, something that Wufei almost envied him. Heero walked with measured, determined, unhesitant strides, like Meiran had. Wufei wasn't like that. He hesitated, or he threw himself in entirely to avoid his own inner conflicts. He didn't always know right from wrong, or care about mission success and failure; he just knew what was just and honorable, and these did not include making war on women and children, or unarmed factory workers who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But he also didn't want to let the murdering cowards get away. This inner storm, it wasn't logical, or efficient, or even very practicable sometimes. It left him at constant war with himself, unlike Heero's straight and rigid lines.

On the other hand, it gave him the mental leeway to allow him to figure out what Foxwood really wanted out of this mission.

And it allowed him to do it. Wufei's temperament was such that he wanted to go in there and take out the enemy that were so weak they had to hide behind innocents. But he was also aware that saving those innocent was more important than his own satisfaction at wiping out the vermin. Foxwood had read that in him, and had been relieved to think he would be a balancing element to Heero.

...Fools...

He didn't bother with the comm unit. Neither would Heero. His partner must have started penetrating the base over five minutes ago and there was still no contact. There wouldn't be. Radio silence during an infiltration mission was an ingrained habit. Wufei knew exactly what Heero was doing and he felt no need to interfere. Heero didn't need someone to watch his back or lay cover fire for him anyway. In fact Yuy was so used to working alone that assisting him could be downright dangerous for Wufei to attempt. Heero didn't need backup; he needed someone who could take down the other half of the base without getting in his way. If Wufei left the enemy alone and concentrated on securing the hostages, then Heero would take down all the hostiles on that base and not notice Wufei hadn't done any of the work until they counted up the 'bodies' later.

He had a feeling this was going to make for some interesting ticks on Foxwood's chart; no communication between partners, no coordination, each doing his own thing. But that was the way they worked and his superiors were just going to have to get used to it.

Wufei dropped to a crouch as he approached a broken jagged tooth of a ruined wall and saw a shadow shift nearby.

No more thinking.

He evened his breath, let the tension run once through his frame, a ripple of readiness, and then he focused.

The man shifted against the pile of packing crates he was leaning against and glanced around again. He was dressed in fatigues with the same flack jacket, goggles and helmet Wufei was wearing. The way he was moving spoke both of slight tension and much boredom. Foxwood had implied the combat test team had been standing by, maybe after another similar test this morning, so this man had probably been here for awhile. He was in his early twenties, with a rather weak mustache fighting to compensate a strong chin and losing, and a strong scimitar-shaped nose. He held a shotgun on his hip with one hand. The other was rubbing the red mark left by the collar of the flak jacket.

The Enemy.

Mustn't kill, of course. But neither was Wufei going to use his stupid paint gun and alert the ones inside to his location.

He could creep around the man...but it would be dangerous to leave a hostile free behind his back.

His fist twitched. Creeping wasn't much his style anyway.

He ghosted forward around the wall that had sheltered him when the man turned to look the other way for intruders.

His opponent was good. Wufei was still two meters away when he saw his target stiffen and glance around, alerted by the sixth sense any true warrior possessed.

Wufei lunged forward. The target jerked his shotgun from his hip, took half a step back, mouth opened and trying to bring the weapon round -

Mistake. Should have used the shotgun as a club.

One of Wufei's hands covered the mouth, slamming the man's head back against the crates. A hard fist hammered the man's guts - but stopping short of doing more than winding him slightly through the flak jacket.

Their eyes met over Wufei's hand on the target's mouth. Shock turned into a glare, turned into surprise again as the man took in Wufei's youth, then the eyes behind the goggles grudgingly shut. Wufei felt a shrug pass through the frame before the man let himself slump forward. Good. If he was going to be playing this silly game, he was glad to see that at least everyone was abiding by the rules.

He grabbed the shotgun before it hit the ground, glanced over it, cracked it open. Plastic shells, big, red and ugly, with a paint-pocket at the tip as well he supposed. They'd still hurt like hell if he was shot anywhere else than the flak jacket. Well he'd just have to avoid that.

He continued around the compound, keeping out of sight of the windows and roof of the target building. One down. An unknown number to go. Intel said ten, but he didn't think he should rely on that. Or on the scribble on the crude map that indicated the hostages were in the front office building. The instant that first guard had picked up his presence, he knew that Foxwood had set up a fairly good simulation with extremely proficient men; they would try to set up a realistic test for their recruits. That meant that, quite realistically, intel would be dodgy. In view of that, Wufei used logic. It wouldn't make any sense for real criminals to keep their hostages that far from their exit route. The hostages would be near the end hangar. Not in it, though; too open, not enough cover. They'd be nearby though. Yuy would deduce the same thing. He'd be taking down as many of the enemy as he could in silence, to minimize the chances of discovery and having one of the criminals going in and using the hostages as shields. Good, but not good enough, not if the hostages were to have the best chance of walking out of this alive.

Wufei regretfully left the second man he found standing where he was, at a side entrance to the hangar. There was no way to get near him under cover, and he couldn't shoot him, not yet. Wufei used a series of big cargo containers for further cover, running along the side of the hangar, looking for another option. The place was huge. The hostages would probably be in the offices near his end. Heero would be operating on the other side, near the big open doors, clearing the men away from the shuttle bay to keep them from leaving.

There.

In the office section, second story. An open window. And the containers and crates backed nearly up to the wall. Wufei measured it all with one practiced glance as he dropped the shotgun; too cumbersome. He took several deep breaths, concentrating his center. He'd noted the shooter on the roof as a matter of course, but the man had turned and headed towards the other end thirty seconds ago, and the roof was very large. Wufei had enough time.

Breathe. In. Out.

Now.

His feet found the balance between speed and silence. The first dash took him to a container higher than his head. Leap - catch the edge - he swung himself up as if weightless, rolling on the container and springing to his feet. Momentum hurled him up on to the second, smaller container stacked on the first. He crouched. Looked around carefully. Rooftop target still out of sight. No one else around.

Breathe. In. Out.

He was two stories up. The window was a good three meters away from the edge of his container, and slightly higher. He stood briefly to glance through the window, cutting his profile against the sky, a clear target but he had to make sure the room was empty. There was nothing in the room and the door was closed (and hopefully not locked). Good, the sound of entry would be less likely to alert anyone who might be patrolling the second story.

He eyed the space between the container and the window, ignoring the drop between the two.

He could feel it come over him; the calm at the heart of the storm. He was aware of every inch of the compound around him, of the distant footsteps of the man on the roof, of the icy breeze blowing into the collar of his vest and the damp skin there, of the shadows in the weak sun cutting across the yard.

He could feel his heart beating, strong and steady. His mind calm, as only the intense focus of battle could make it. His breath was even and empowering, in, out, gathering his energy to bridge that space separating him from his objective. He could feel the blood rushing through his muscles, the air pool in his lungs. Alive.

His boots rang hollow against the container's metal as he threw himself forward. Air rushed past him, unheeded, all his focus on the window, oblivious of the drop below. He caught the edge of the window with inches to spare, even managed to get his feet against the wall before his body slammed into it. Less noise that way, but the clang of his boots against metal seemed to hang in the air like a luminous trail behind him. He could almost feel the man on the roof spin in surprise, trying to locate the direction of the noise -

One heave of his arms had him up and curled over the window sill in near total silence, just a groan of metal and the scrape of his boots on the wall outside. He landed like a cat with his gun drawn in the same movement, covering the door.

He paused in the bare room, letting his senses unfurl, taking it all in. No noise from the hallway outside. A scrape of boot from the rooftop shooter above as the man inspected the now empty side of the hangar. A distant shout from somewhere deeper in the building - not an alarm. Good.

Breathe. In. Out. Move.

Wufei approached the door, absently flicking his free hand; the edge of the window had been fairly sharp, leaving a red welt across both his palms. He listened. Nothing from the hallway. And - a break for once - the door was unlocked. Good. It wasn't a complex lock, Maxwell could crack it in the time it took him to pop his gum, but Wufei wasn't quite that dexterous. And time was getting short, he couldn't afford to lose even a minute. He knew Heero's capabilities. He estimated that at least four targets were down by now, in total silence. Soon the alarm was going to be raised and Wufei had to get to the hostages before that happened.

The hallway was empty and smelled of dust. It led to some stairs. He kept low; there were windows looking out into the hangar on one side. Other offices - empty, his instincts told him - lined the other side of the hallway. He made his way to the stairs as quickly as possible.

The smell of gunpowder - a faint taint in the air, not too recent - made him pause.

He crept down to the first bend of the stairs, ears and senses already alert to the slight shifting below, followed by a mutter.

"-in, Trent. Trent?" A click and a small crackle of static. "Looks like it's started," the voice murmured. Another crackle and click. "Men, we've lost contact with Trent. Karavo, go check him, maybe he lost comms."

Wufei nodded slightly. These guys were good, they'd obviously been in this situation before, on the oppose side. Foxwood's crew knew that Heero and Wufei were attacking them, but the gunrunners they were impersonating would not be expecting an attack, not without sirens and sounds of shooting; they wouldn't panic because one man didn't respond to a hail, they'd investigate first, like these people were doing. But any minute now - if they stuck to the most likely scenario - the person on the radio would do a head count, or someone would find Trent's 'body'.

A quick glance below. The main office floor was one big space, empty bar a cracked desk on which the radio was sitting. The woman had the radio’s mike in her hand. She was leaning against the wall between two windows looking out onto the hangar. Her other hand held a submachine gun, the standard small Alliance type, with a finger on the trigger. She had a gun at her belt, a knife in her boot top. She was tall and muscular. Short-cropped brown hair peeked from below her helmet. She was keeping a careful eye on the approach to the office door from the hangar. There was another door at the far end of the office leading outside. That was the entrance with a guard in front, which Wufei had avoided. It was the only way into the room, other than the door leading to the hangar which the woman was watching. And, of course, the stairs leading straight down. He couldn't see the rest of the room, but he was willing to bet the hostages were there.

The radio crackled. It was quite big and sophisticated for just communication.

//Sanji? Did you pick up anything yet?// The voice just confirmed what he'd guessed. The 'gunrunners' were listening in to all frequencies, to pick up police channels as well as possible attacks. Just one more curve-ball that Foxwood would have tossed at applicants who might not have realized that reality does not always conform to intel, or play nice.

"No, still nothing on the airwaves. Did they switch channels do you think?" She'd turned towards the back of the room for that question - another hostile was present.

"If they did, it must have been a channel they decided on ahead of time," a familiar voice answered. Wufei frowned. What was he doing here?

//Who was that?// The voice on the radio crackled.

"The Old Fox decided to join us," Sanji answered with a small hard smile. Her eyes were back on the hangar around her, sweeping from side to side while she kept her body carefully shielded by the wall. A thought brushed the edges of Wufei's concentration, set aside to be examined later: if this was the caliber of people he could expect to work with, he wasn't too disappointed.

He ghosted down the steps in a low crouch. He was slightly behind her, and her attention was on the hangar, he had a small leeway before she picked up his presence. He glanced through the stairs' railings. A dozen chairs were lined up against the back of the room. Seven of them had dummies tied to them with steel cable, a few of them sagging sadly against their restraints. Another chair held Foxwood and his omnipresent chart. He had a cable looped loosely around him, symbolizing him as another hostage and not a criminal, though Sanji had visibly not dared to actually tie him up properly, and what a pity. He was writing something on his damn paper again. There was no other hostile in the room, the others must be in the hangar, they'd be preparing for their escape in little over an hour.

Wufei crouched and descended a few steps, as low as he could without being visible through the hangar's windows. His gun was trained on Sanji. She was alternating flipping through channels and checking the hangar outside. The radio whined and crackled. She frowned.

"Aren't these two guys even talking to themselves?" she muttered.

"They might be using a code of flicks and static," Foxwood surmised. "Didn't you find a live channel yet?"

"The only live channel around is ours and channel 180, but Fillmore has got that one on permanently and he'd have mentioned any noise at all." Sanji was puzzled, but not distracted one bit. There was no way Heero would get anywhere near this office without her seeing him, there was no cover to speak of near the door and she wouldn't be caught out. Thank the gods for that open window upstairs.

"Well, when they get here we'll ask-" Foxwood caught his breath as he spotted Wufei through the handrails. He tried to recover, but Sanji had already spun around to see what had alerted him. She stiffened and her eyes widened in shock as she saw Wufei's gun centered on her chest.

"Put the gun down slowly," Wufei whispered, remembering the other guard outside the door, and possibly others nearby in the hangar.

Sanji hesitated. She had her finger on the trigger, but the gun wasn't pointing in any particular direction; it would take her a precious second to swing it at Wufei or the hostages.

"Put. It. Down."

Sanji looked at his eyes, at the gun trained on her chest without a tremor, then she grimaced and leaned forward to put her weapon on the floor. She obviously estimated a real criminal would be sufficiently cowed by the gesture even if unimpressed by his age.

"Get on your knees, slide it towards me gently," Wufei murmured.

Sanji complied. The skitter of the gun across the broken linoleum sounded very loud in the silence.

"Now the revolver. Draw it from your belt with two fingers on the grip."

That weapon ended up a few feet away from the submachine gun.

"And the knife."

Sanji made a face, but drew the knife from her boot carefully, fingers loose on the hilt, and slid it towards him as well.

"Turn your back to me, lie on the ground, hands on your head." That part felt weird. He normally just had prisoners standing around, knowing that if they tried anything he'd shoot them without compunction. Now he had to actually take steps to limit the risk to the enemy - the suspects that is, as well as the hostages. New parameters for a terrorist, but they weren't too foreign to him. He was a fighter and a warrior, not a killer. He'd never liked shooting unarmed people.

Sanji got to the ground with a small grunt and complied. Her body was alive with tension. If he got within arms’ reach, she would make him pay for it.

He cast a quick glance out the windows towards the rest of the hangar. One hostile on the walkway off to one side, high up, looking over the empty space and the stripped carcass of a shuttle, symbolizing the runners' escape route. No other enemies visible. He waited until he was sure the man wouldn't spot his movements through the office window - keeping an eye on Sanji and the other door as well - and then darted down the stairs to put his back against the wall beneath the window. This put the table with the radio between him and the outer door, but he could still keep his gun on Sanji.

He caught a movement from Foxwood. The man had glanced at his watch. Wufei frowned at the distracting scribble from the chart.

"Do you have anything to say to us hostages?" Foxwood asked him quietly.

Wufei scowled at what he thought of as 'the other, less talkative, dummies'. "I'm a Preventer. If you want to live, don't make a fuss. I'll untie you when we've secured the area," he muttered.

Sanji snorted against the floor, and Foxwood made a face and scribbled some more. Time to target: 35 minutes. Performance subduing hostile: Acceptable. Bedside manner: Atrocious. Well, Wufei had made it clear he was no hostage negotiator.

The radio crackled. //Sanji? Come in, Sanji.//

Sanji tensed against the floor.

//Sanji? You already do the headcount?...Sanji? Come in, Ravee, can you hear me?//

Silence.

//Fillmore? Can you get a bead on Sanji?//

//Sanji?...No. You don't think-//

//Don't see how, I'm on the walkway, I've had the door in sight the whole time, and Ed's at the entrance. I talked to him thirty seconds ago. Sanji, if you can hear me but can't reach me, lean out the window and wave.//

A moment of silence. Then: //Switch.//

Wufei slid over nearer the table and motioned to Sanji with his gun. "Roll over, slowly, away. I'll tell you when to stop." If he could use the radio...it was sophisticated equipment, it would be able to pick up a live channel automatically if he programmed it, he would be able to find the enemy's new communication channel and follow their plans -

\- and it hit him that Sanji's second in command might ask the guard at the entrance to check on her half a second before he heard the handle squeak.

He reacted purely on instinct. He threw himself sideways away from the table, gun swinging up. The man didn't have time to do more than open the door; the shot rung out -

_Fuck!_

He'd forgotten - part of him had been back in the war, despite all his mental preparation. He'd made it a head-shot without thinking.

The man's helmet went flying with the impact; he'd not tied the choker. He fell backwards with a thump.

"Dammit-" Wufei put his hand to his throat mike. Sanji had said Fillmore was listening on channel 180, he'd be able to get a medic here if-

"Ed, you okay?" Sanji hissed.

Ed lay still for two seconds, then lifted a hand and made a thumbs-up gesture. His arm was trembling a bit but he seemed okay.

"Sorry," Wufei muttered, trying to get back into the mind-frame of the exercise with some difficulty. The sound of Foxwood scribbling behind him wasn't helping. Ed turned the thumbs-up into a forgiving wave of his hand before lifting it further to rub his head, which must be ringing a bit. The helmet - with a bright blue paint mark on it - was still rocking back and forth like an overturned turtle a few feet away.

Wufei could almost feel the enemy making plans around him, alerted by the shot. He couldn't risk getting to the radio now, he'd be visible through the windows to the man on the walkway who would not miss the slightest movement. Wufei also had two doors to cover now, and Sanji to watch. How easy this would be depended on how many men Heero had taken down.

He tensed as more shots echoed through the hangar. He wanted to glance out the window, but knew better. The man on the walkway might miss him, but if Heero was out there, he certainly wouldn't. This was the most dangerous part of the exercise for the partners. For most of their war-time missions they'd been either fighting side by side, or each on their own with their own exit plans. They'd only had to meet up at a common target a couple of times. It had been easier then, because they were two teens in a base full of men in identical uniforms. Now they were dressed pretty much the same as the hostiles, and they both had quick trigger fingers. Wufei didn't want a friendly-fire incident to go on to Foxwood's chart with any other unorthodox thing they'd done.

Two more shots. Wufei crouched near the stairs, back to the wall, gun at mid-point between the two doors.

He barely heard the slight scuffle near the door. His senses told him who it was; he doubted anyone else could move like that. He trusted Heero's superhuman reaction times to stop him from shooting before he recognized Wufei, but it would be a close thing, and he knew how that would look to Foxwood. Better take a small risk and avoid another black mark. He flicked on the comms.

"Yuy." No more. Heero would instantly guess where he was and what he meant to say, they knew each other that much. An enemy listening in would not be able to guess where he was from so little.

The nearly inaudible steps paused and then the door opened, Heero's gun swinging around cautiously. Wufei held his own weapon pointed at the door until he recognized the small frame in the flack jacket and helmet, blue eyes focused behind the goggles. Heero cast a glance at Sanji, Foxwood and Ed, assessing the situation in a flash, then slipped inside and closed the door quickly.

Heero crouched where Sanji had been, glancing out the window. He looked around the hangar outside carefully.

"How many did you take down?" he murmured without looking at Wufei.

"Three," Wufei said as neutrally as he could.

That earned him a look of surprise. He was slightly gratified that Heero had expected him to neutralize more. Then Heero’s eyes flickered towards the 'hostages'.

"All unharmed," Wufei added, trying not to sound defensive.

"Hn. Nine down," Heero informed him. "All but one kill confirmed." Wufei winced at the scribble from Foxwood's chart.

"So that's twelve. Do you know how many there were?"

"No." Heero glanced at Sanji, as if remembering the novelty of a live captive. And its usefulness. "You. How many total?"

Sanji looked at him coolly.

Heero opened his mouth but Wufei cut in quickly.

"We're not letting you go, and your friends will have run if they're smart. A bit of cooperation now could mean a few years off your sentence when the judge is doing his tally." This lawful approach would mean a lot less interesting scribbles on Foxwood's chart than Heero's method, which would have consisted in 'tell me how many more while you still have enough fingers to count that high.'

Sanji looked at them carefully, then shrugged from her prone position. "Two more, if you guys took out as many as you say. It's a fair cop," she added with a sly grin at Foxwood as if this was a private joke. Foxwood grunted, eyes still on his chart.

Heero glanced at Wufei, a question in his eyes. And the slight longing of someone who'd been very, very bored these past few weeks.

Wufei struggled internally. They should stay here with the hostages, and damn the fugitives, let the police put out an APB. But Heero wouldn't accept that; the mission was to put them behind bars or in the morgue. So Wufei would have liked to be the one to do it! He had secured the hostages, he'd done his job and he'd been bored too back in Hangzhou. But he gritted his teeth. When it came to pure mayhem, Heero was just that little bit better than he was. And Wufei could see his duty to guard the hostages, where Heero only saw the mission of protecting the peace by defeating the enemy. It made sense.

"Go on, Yuy, I'll watch things here."

Heero gave him a curt nod and had ghosted out the door before he'd finished speaking. He was left alone with a hostile Sanji still on the floor, a dead Ed watching the clouds and scratching his nose at the door, and Foxwood scribbling madly and disapprovingly in his chart.

Ten boring minutes later Heero reappeared to tell him there was no trace of the runaways. They'd probably cleared out on getting no radio contact and hearing the shots. Foxwood called the simulation to an end, Sanji and Ed got off the floor with some relief, and Wufei stood, a bit lost, in the middle of the office, feeling let down by the whole exercise which had been a pale imitation of the real thing however proficient the opposing team were. It left him feeling unsatisfied.

Foxwood was still seated, though he'd thrown away the loop of cable. He was writing on his chart. Heero and Wufei drifted over, but he didn't seem to notice them standing over him.

Finally he lifted his old eyes and looked from one to the other.

"I'll send my report to Une. Here, Chang. Fill this in, sign it, fax it in to head office." He stood, stretched with a creak of old ligaments.

"You pass," he grunted, before Wufei could ask or examine the paper he was holding. "But I warn you two. I'm keeping an eye on you. I know what kind of job you'll be doing. Finesse will never be your thing. I know you won't always have the choice of bringing them all out alive - the perps or the bystanders. But do your best. Or I will know about it. And I will make you wish you were back in the war." He spun on his heels and walked out, flanked by Sanji and the man from the walkway who had a bright blue paint-mark on his back. They all left without a word.

Wufei was left alone with Heero, holding what turned out to be a certification of field readiness. He felt even more let down, though he'd not been expecting a hug or a handshake from Foxwood.

"What happens now?"

Heero shrugged. "Une has to read his report, the final decision is hers. She should contact us soon. Let's go back to the house. There's nothing more to do here."

After returning the weapons and protective gear, and picking up Heero's car at the ops center, they drove back through a sudden burst of wintry sunlight leaking through mid-afternoon clouds.

"Did Foxwood tell you to go for the hostages first?" Heero asked him abruptly after a few minutes of their usual silence.

Wufei took hold of every fiber of his body to answer as smoothly as possible: "The criminals were the first objective, the hostages were the secondary. I didn't think you'd need my help with a loosely scattered force though, and I was closer to the hostage location, so I decided to leave the first objective to you and secure the secondary." All of which was true, more or less; that was the way Foxwood would have given them the mission if he knew anything about soldiers, or, more precisely, anything about Heero Yuy.

Heero did not ask what Foxwood had said exactly. Wufei wondered if he suspected that his partner was, well, _rectifying_ the truth, so to speak. Heero was silent for a moment before he said: "When I took down the fifth target without seeing any signs of you, I thought that might be the case."

Which was why Heero had taken out all the enemy he could reach before even coming near the hostages. If Heero had been alone, he'd have made his way to the office sooner, if only to free them and take them out of the equation. Wufei knew this by instinct. Though there had been no communication between them, and when it came down to it, they'd only worked together a dozen times during the war, they understood each other; their fighting styles meshed.

Damn Foxwood and his charts and his proper police procedures. Heero and Wufei were warriors, they breathed the same air, the rarefied oxygen of an unforgiving battlefield. They might be sixteen, but they knew what they were doing. They were two-fifths of a force that had taken down two armies. They could not be discounted.


	15. Chi, Part II

It takes hundreds of reincarnations to bring two people to ride on the same boat.  
It takes a thousand eons to bring two people to share the same pillow.  
\--- Mandarin Proverb

 

"Go ahead," Wufei said as Heero gestured him towards the bathroom. "I'll fill this in and fax it to Une before I shower."

Heero nodded, not surprised that someone would prefer to finish a mission rather than indulge in a creature comfort, and headed towards the bathroom.

Wufei had faxed the signed certificate off when he heard a faint ringing noise. Poking his head out of the bedroom door, he heard the shower water abruptly cut off and Heero start talking. Twenty seconds later Heero opened the door, a towel knotted around his hips and his cell at his ear.

" ...know that, but why would Une-... his guardian? But-... Let me talk to her... Why?"

Wufei lifted his eyebrows, but Heero shook his head then jerked his thumb behind him towards the shower. Shrugging, Wufei dropped Heero's clothes out of the small room and took a quick shower, rinsing off dust, sweat and a couple of small aches he hadn't noticed until now. Despite training during university, he had lost some of his shape. He'd have to retrain himself severely. Heero would undoubtedly help with that. Painfully.

He merely rinsed himself off then struggled, still damp, into his pair of black jeans - the only clean clothes he had at the moment - and strode quickly to Heero's room, following the cold, measured tones of his partner's voice. Guardian. Wufei's guardian? Uncle Wai? Was there a problem?

Heero was sitting at his laptop, still wearing nothing but the towel, the phone squeezed between shoulder and ear, his fingers flying over the keyboard while he talked. "...Okay... but what if he's difficult about-...oh...he won't accept that. Not if he's as stubborn as Chang." The last was said with the smallest of wintry smirks in Wufei's direction as he closed the bedroom door. Wufei responded to the comment with the scowl it deserved.

"... Hn. He doesn't know you, commander. Very well, we'll be waiting." Heero disconnected without a goodbye.

"Well?!" Wufei barely waited for his finger to hit the button.

"Legal matters." Heero set the phone on his desk and finished typing. He turned around again at the hiss of hot-tempered frustration behind him.

"Nothing too serious. Une contacted your guardian, Wai Law Chi, she needed his permission for, well, a lot of stuff." Heero shrugged as if he couldn't imagine why society would care what happened to a sixteen-year-old.

"Wai knows I want to do this! He agreed!" Wufei barked. A trickle of water fell from his hair and ran down his bare chest, making him shiver, like the trickle of fear that he would not be allowed to do this, not be allowed to do what he was meant for, the only thing that made him feel complete.

"Oh don't worry, he signed off. But he imposed conditions. He wants to keep some control over what you do, check up on you a few times until you're eighteen. And he insisted that you have a month vacation before you do anything else."

Wufei didn't know what kind of face he made on hearing that, but it must have been a good one because even the normally impassive Heero snickered.

"I'll talk to him," Wufei snapped. A month? What was uncle Wai thinking! Oh he could do with a bit of retraining, but not a month!

"You don't have to. Better not in fact. He's still your guardian. He could give Une a big headache if he wants to."

"But-"

"I said you don't have to. Une's devious. I think she brought out the nicer side of her personality." Heero's lips twisted. "She promised him you'd have all the rest you need, unless there's some emergency."

"So?! Am I going to rot here for a month?!"

"No, Chang. In our job, any fire is an emergency according to the ESUN statutes." Heero's face was as blank as always, but the panther-like movement as he rose from his chair spoke of anticipation. Wufei relaxed in turn.

"And how soon are we likely to get an emergency?" he asked slowly.

"Today, or maybe tomorrow."

Wufei smiled, the feral smirk of a predator scenting blood. Sorry, uncle Wai. He knew the old man had his best interest at heart, but he didn't need a break, didn't need a holiday. He needed...it could barely be put into words. But it had to do with his heart thundering in his chest, the blood screaming through his veins, harsh air ripping from his lungs, his life on the edge where it made a difference...

That morning had been nothing but an appetizer, for all it had had its moments. And if he was eager, Heero must be desperate. Yuy had hunkered down to admin duties and the occasional solo mission with discipline and patience like the good soldier he was. But the rare smile that echoed Wufei's was just as fervent and deadly and ready for action.

And then it melted into something else.

Wufei caught the tail end of the look in that moment of shared anticipation, of fellow feeling. He noticed how Heero's eyes had dropped to his bare chest, to the waist of his jeans where he'd not bothered to do up the last button. Wufei read the expression that flickered across Heero's face and body before it was carefully caught and locked away in the soldier's prison of iron will.

Today, or maybe tomorrow...That was a long time to wait, in a certain way...Wufei found his eyes dragged to Heero's own frame almost reluctantly. Lean chest rippling with muscle, pared down to the most efficient edge of power and grace, slim hips from which the towel was starting to slip, the shadow of hipbone on golden skin...Wufei was still ambivalent about this. Though it took him a few seconds to remember why. Right, he wasn't actually all that attracted to men, and a true warrior should be able to control his baser instincts. He could see that was what Heero was doing; the blue eyes that caught his gaze were now clear, uncaring.

That sounds cool, but you're both sixteen and neither of you have gotten laid in the past six month, so at this point, who cares if he's a guy - a very, very good-looking guy may I add. Just remember that if you don't deal with your baser instincts now they might interfere with the mission later. That was why you guys made this whole arrangement in the first place. If it was good enough for the samurai, buddy...

Normally he felt like dragging that little voice from his head and shooting it between the eyes but...not today. Today he felt strangely absolved, and freed from the ambiguity of his desires. It allowed him to move to intercept Heero as the latter walked towards the door to go pick up his clothes left in the bathroom.

His partner stopped, poised, waiting. They weren't quite face to face, their shoulders were almost touching. Heero couldn't move forward without brushing Wufei out of the way.

"It could be a long mission," Wufei started, since he was damned if he could think of any other way of saying this. Actually he doubted he needed any words at all, not for Yuy, but maybe he needed to hear this for himself.

Heero nodded slowly. Though he was still facing the door straight ahead, the blue eyes had twitched to one side and fastened on black.

"It will probably be dangerous."

Heero nodded vigorously. One or the other had leaned forward another breath. Heat from Heero's skin prickled up and down Wufei's left side and shoulder where they almost touched. He waited. Damned if he was going to do all the work.

Apparently choosing his words with care, Heero said slowly: "But...your preferences are-"

"We've been through that, Yuy. Do you see any willing women here? There's just us."

The blue eyes flickered away from his own. "Even if the mission comes in today, we won't leave until tomorrow afternoon. We have to get you equipped. We could always go out tonight. We're no longer at war, security is no longer primordial. We could always..."

"What, pay for it?" Wufei sneered. "I had that option back in Hangzhou, and I'd rather jerk myself off." And Heero was probably the same; neither of them would feel comfortable relinquishing even a fraction of their control, of themselves, to someone they didn't know, much less a whore. "There's always that last option, but you're the one who said it was more satisfactory to share the need when you first slammed me to the ground back in that shed."

"You weren't very sure about it then." Heero's eyes had widened. He threw that like a challenge.

Oh just rub my face in it, Wufei thought furiously. He knew he'd been weak - and worse, a hypocrite - at the start, letting Heero give him the illusion he was forcing him to accept their mutual need. And yes, he still had his inner conflicts about this and much more. But he'd learned to dominate them, like a warrior should.

"Since we're taking a trip down memory lane, remember our first mission together? The target who liked Asian boys, to Maxwell's utter amusement? The one where you took a gamble and shot him yourself rather than risk the chance of me going in solo and screwing up?" His voice dripped acid.

Heero's pupils dilated slightly. "You weren't trained as an assassin."

"Think that would have stopped me?"

"No. I...didn't know you as well then." A hand brushed Wufei's chest as it reached for his face but didn't touch his cheek.

"So?"

"It wouldn't have stopped you, but I was still the best suited mentally for the job," Heero said severely.

Wufei's eyes narrowed. "Remember what happened afterwards?"

And he wasn't just talking about the screw in the alley. _You are an efficient killer, Chang_. The first time Heero Yuy had looked back and seen how close Wufei was following him, matching him stride for stride. The first time Heero had realized he didn't just have a convenient fuck, but a partner. Suddenly this was about more than just sex. It was about the whole arrangement. They were here, alone, because they chose to be, on the warrior's path that had no goal but to see how far they could go, how much better they could get.

Wufei could see the memories and thoughts playing across the blue eyes. Heero had let the mask slip for a few seconds. The hand near Wufei's face still hesitated.

"Don't underestimate me, Yuy," Wufei whispered with an edge of menace. "I may not be fucking perfect like you, but I am strong enough to face my own demons, bear my own sins and dominate my own doubts. I don't need your condescension."

"You never had it."

Wufei felt like contesting that - the 'never' part, he was pretty sure that was a lie - but he never had a chance to open his mouth, the hand cupped his jaw, hard lips were pressed into his own.

... _there's just us_...

No more thinking. Wufei slipped the grasp that was still light on his neck and hip and pulled Heero to him with arms like steel. The body against his was tense as a wire for a second or two; Heero Yuy let his guard down for no one, not even his partner. Then the hands on him hardened their grip, slipping across skin with a tingle of pressure to press him into the hard body fiercely.

They were side by side as their knees touched the bed. A ripple of hesitation ran from one to the other, a question. Then Wufei, with something of an inner grimace and a flutter of anticipation, broke the embrace to sit, then lie down on the bed. Heero didn't question it, didn't try to doubt his decision this time. Just nodded fleetingly and then leaned over to a box near the side of the bed. The towel had tumbled from his hips and Wufei, propped up on his elbows, let his eyes linger over the sight that had occupied some of his more involving dreams in that bed in Hangzhou.

He saw a slight grimace cross Heero's face and the hand came out of the box of toiletries with a tube of-

"Burn cream?" Wufei didn't know if he should laugh or glare. Heero shrugged, a bit defensively. Apparently he'd not thought he'd need any lubricant from now on. The only other thing he had around in his bathroom was soap.

"It'll do," Wufei grumbled; the nearest pharmacy would be quite some distance away from the industrial zone and it would be a pity for Heero to get dressed again. A great pity.

He forced himself to relax as Heero sat himself on the side of the bed, then crawled over until he was kneeling between Wufei's legs. He didn't really mind this. For starters it was his turn, Heero had been bottom last time. And after some of the research he'd done, he was...curious. He didn't think his first time, occulted by embarrassment, discomfort and confusion, had been all it could be.

The burn cream tossed momentarily aside, Heero put his hands slowly on Wufei's chest. Strong fingers ran down his body, too hard for a caress, as if trying to define and test the muscles beneath the skin. Then the hands met at the v of his partially open jeans, slowly popping the second button open with a small flick sound. Flick, flick, the third and fourth button followed, the sound blending in with their quickening breath to sound oddly erotic in the silence of the converted workshop. The rasp of Heero's hands against his skin was a melody onto itself as they reached to lift the jeans away from his hips. In the distance, a beep from a truck backing out, a growl of motor, a faint incomprehensible shout from men working on something or other. In the bare room, where the crack of winter sunlight paled in the light of neon overhead, there was only the rhythm of harsh breathing, the squeak of springs as Wufei arched his hips off the bed, the lush sound of cloth slipping from flesh as Heero drew the jeans down his legs. One of the neon spat and muttered; nobody else commented.

A sound of a screw cap twisting. Wufei had found his eyes closing by themselves, not in embarrassment this time, but...it just made the passivity slightly easier to bear. A sharp medicine smell stung his nose, like copper and camphor combined. He remembered it well, from their time in Italy and, more disturbingly, from the times they'd had to treat themselves or each other's wounds. An unwelcome invasion; memory of red pain and stinging, pulling flesh. Wufei lost a bit of the excitement that was prowling around his loins. A handspan of burn scar on his upper thigh tingled. At the back of his throat coiled the choking smell of burnt flesh and blood, his fingers twitched as they remembered smearing the stuff on Trowa's chest after a battle for Peacemillion, little clicks nearby as Quatre cut the gauze -

Lips crushed his own and a hand, slick and sticky now, drew a line from his neck down his chest, pausing to circle a nipple, before dropping to his erection. Wufei felt a ripple like a tsunami run through his flesh, ripping away the memories of war. The feel of Heero Yuy's hand on his cock was something else that had decorated his dreams during their time apart.

Satisfied that Wufei was back in bed with him, one of Heero's hands dropped lower, ghosting over the sacs to toy with the entrance beyond. Wufei could feel every move, strangely delicate from hands that could crush flesh and steel with equal ease. His eyes were still closed, heightening the sensations.

The breach was slow but steady, and not as uncomfortable as he remembered. Well, maybe a bit, as Heero felt deeper and the muscles stretched. Apparently this got a bit easier with practice. He'd done this a grand total of once so far, so a little pain was to be expected, however careful Heero tried to be. Wufei didn't actually mind, pain was not an issue. Actually he had to admit that it felt...interesting. The discomfort seemed to highlight the feelings of being stretched, stroked, like a massage, a touch both gentle and firm, demanding the surrender of muscles to warmth and respite. Wufei's back arched slightly as the feeling accentuated and the movement became more complex, prodding and poking, sending shivers of sensation flooding upwards, highlighted by the darkness behind his eyelids.

His hands twitched on the prickly cover of the bed. This was the only part he didn't like. Lying on his back like some damn woman letting the man do all the work, the seduction. Heero had taken it like a trooper last time, so would he. Actually how had Heero reacted last time...? Damn, he could only remember a thumb kneading the cords of his neck. And the sex, the feel of-...And a rather impressive set of bruises on his shoulders afterwards. A slight twinge of shame at that; Heero was much more considerate. Bloody perfect, even in this, another part of Wufei grumbled immediately; count on Heero not to get lost in the feelings, overwhelmed by sensation.

This-...really did feel good...

Heero's other hand had been tracing the firm, taut muscles of Wufei's abdomen, almost idly, occasionally dropping to his erection to distract him - very successfully - when the other hand probed deeper or added a finger to the task. Now the hand rose, still feeling its way; did Heero also have his eyes closed? Across his side, his chest, down one arm, kneading and pressing, another massage relaxing him, sending waves of sensation rippling back down his body to crash with the other set, meeting somewhere in the region of his groin. Heero lifted Wufei's forearm. His hand touched a firm shoulder. Fingers grasped flesh instinctively in a gasp; Heero's other hand had twisted slightly and flicked on the neon inside Wufei's eyelids. His whole body crackled and sparked.

His hand was buried in hair at the base of Heero's neck, both rough and silky, like a hound's pelt. Distracted, he let his fingers play, knowing that this was what Heero needed too. A touch. So little. So needed, to breach just once in awhile the voluntary isolation around the soldier.

Wufei's world dissolved. Little jagged spikes of pleasure and light drilled through his body. He still kept enough control - even here, even now - to avoid pulling Heero's hair. The head turned beneath his fingers. A mouth nuzzled his wrist, nipping gently at the beat threading and pulsating there.

Heero's fingers left him. Hands dropped to his hips, tilting them up. A flash of regret for that pain/comfort/pleasure, for a touch where he'd trust only one other person to touch him...

Well, bar the doctor from the medical this morning, the little inner voice suddenly piped up, probably just to see him squirm and flinch. Great, that wasn't the kind of memory he wanted to -

Breath left his lungs in a grunt of shock as Heero suddenly pressed himself where his fingers had been.

Hands immediately soothed, chased after the little shudders running through his flesh. Hunted them down and subdued them with rough pressure and stroking fingers. Wufei relaxed slowly, taking in this new sensation, the pulse running through his body. The way his hips were canted upwards onto Heero's lap. The sheer presence of Heero within him. His breath hitched again as Heero moved in deeper, but it was more surprise than pain; he hadn't remembered it felt so... so...

It feels fucking fantastic...The little inner voice was awed. Wufei didn't bother scowling at it, caught at the cusp of a pleasure so strange it was indistinguishable from pain.

He was panting against Heero's shoulder. His partner had leaned in, put his hand near jet-black hair for balance. A dip curved the mattress next to his head. Wufei's hands were grasping Heero's shoulders, both of them. A trembling grip that seemed torn between pushing him away and pulling him closer. The body shifted slightly above his own. Wufei's hands tensed, he was caged in. Not in control. But Heero hadn't complained last time. He could do this.

Heero moved and Wufei's thoughts dissolved and he just wanted _more_...

A strong hand grasped him under the shoulder. More than a caress, a grip. An arm reached around his waist. Wufei almost shouted in shock as he was jerked away from the cover. Disorientated, he scrabbled and his arms circled strong shoulders.

The pressure of penetration grew; only a fraction but very alarming. He almost panicked, tore himself away - then he realized Heero was holding him up bodily, with almost obscene ease, waiting for him to get his legs under him and support himself.

He stared down at piercing blue under tousled hair, flushed cheeks; his eyes had flown open instinctively. He could no longer close them. He was above Heero now, his legs on either side of his partner's lap. His hands gripped red marks onto the golden skin of Heero's shoulders. His hips and back tilted to accommodate their union. But he was now in control of the measure of it. Well, not entirely. A gentle but insistently growing tug on his shoulders was forcing him down, forcing him to move, to take more. He found himself smiling fiercely. Yes, this was how they did things. He allowed it but only so far and then thrust back up again. The pleasure of in and out clung to his skin like sweat. He shivered. Heero tugged him down again with a deep exhalation like a groan. Eyes hooded over clouded blue. Wufei flexed his legs, tilted further back.

It was more a fight between two opposing forces than cooperation, it should have been awkward. It wasn't. Wufei could read the play of muscle beneath his hands. Heero anticipated him. They knew each other's movements. Strike and parry. Separate and together.

A small change in angle left him gasping, head thrown back, blinded. Violent pleasure ripped up his spine. His hair, still loose from his shower, tickled his shoulder blades, skin rippling with the sensation like an aftershock. His grip and movement surrendered an instant to the punch of sensation. Heero's grunt of satisfaction and victory sent a breath across his chest as he let himself be pulled down deeper. A slight pain joined the pleasure and heightened it. His whole body started to tremble. Hammering like a heartbeat. He recaptured his share of the movement. More...

Breathe. In. Out.

Warm flesh beneath his fingers. Damp, slipping. His grip tightened.

Down. Thrill and a twinge.

In. Out. Breathe.

This wasn't going to last long. It was too perfect to last long. And the unleashed storm thundered through his veins, pulsed under his skin. It wanted satisfaction.

Heero leaned back. They both compensated for the shift in balance instinctively. A familiar hand caressed him - the storm broke.

Wufei gasped, a blow of air to the chest as if he had been holding his breath for months -

Blurred white. His heart thundered. His body coiled, and broke free in a rush.

He faintly felt Heero snarl against his shoulder, tug him down possessively, hips thrusting up into his pulsing body. Pain, slight, so distant...The rest felt so good...

A sudden disorientation jerked him from the moment of complete non-thinking he'd been lost in. A jumble of images - the room, flushed skin, tousled hair, dazed blue eyes - and he found himself lying on his back on the prickly cover, which would have left him some rather unpleasant burns if he'd been pounded against it. He could barely feel it; he seemed weightless, as if that deep breath that had blown out all the tame, stale air from his body was still buoying him. He distantly felt Heero pull back from him, and shove him a bit to one side, lazily, so that he could collapse by Wufei's side.

His body began to let itself come back down to the bed in sections. The first was his ass which felt rather sorer than last time. For some reason he just couldn't care...Just as his mind began to drift he felt the skin of his abdomen come into focus, with the very unmistakable feeling of a viscous liquid that had been at the same temperature as his body, now cooling rapidly in the room's fresh air. His arms were tired, as were his legs, from the effort of measuring his movements to Heero's. A tingle on his arm...

Heero was lying on his side, propped up on one elbow. Wufei's hip informed him of the dips in the mattress this was causing. A finger idly traced a scar on Wufei's upper arm as if his partner didn't remember that one. Maybe he didn't...Of course he didn't, he'd never seen it. Wufei cast an indifferent eye at the pucker of pink flesh running up to a harsh V of scar tissue. A flash of memory; gaping skin welling with blood soaking through torn cloth, dripping down to the throttle he was grasping, the gumminess of it between his fingers and the grip, the smell of burnt plastic and hot metal, a very distant pain barely noticed in the heat of that very last space battle...It seemed so long ago now.

And this...this was now. And this felt right. He knew why he'd done this, why he'd precipitated matters. The desire had been there of course; six months of not getting laid and having his blood quickened by the fake assault earlier, a pale ersatz of battle, no wonder they'd been horny. But there was more.

He and Heero were linked. It went beyond war now. In this peace they knew nothing about, they were now taking the same road. They were very different, but they were closer to each other than to anyone else in earth and in space; exhalation and inhalation, distinct yet linked, not by affection but necessity. The sex was a promise, the signature on the contract. They were not going to take the easy road in this peace. They would continue the battle against themselves, to become better, to reach for a goal that was now uniquely their own. They chose now to take on the missions, protect for others what they were probably unable to enjoy, and grab what satisfaction they could in the process. The closeness they'd just shared was a pact; it said they would not let anything interfere, get between them and their goals, not the affection of companionship, not the warmth of a woman's arms, no distractions, no -

All that and it was fucking great sex too!

Okay that was _it_! He didn't care what it took, he was going to get this little demon exorcised from his brain. Now what would be needed...Its name? He knew that. It was a Maxwell demon, tantalizing, self-assured, sensual and unashamed of it, everything he was not, so obviously an invasion from outside. What else? If he remembered right, an exorcism required six copper seals, red thread, incense, parchment and ink. And a Shinto priest. Easy.

"We have some time before the mission, maybe we should do some shopping," Heero muttered.

Yeah, where can I find copper seals?

"I suggest we get you a proper double bed."

Wufei realized the shifting besides him for the past minute had been his partner trying to fit into the very small space Wufei had left him on the military bed. Heero was pressed against his arm, and Wufei didn't think either of them really wanted this contact, not now. Heero was neatly compartmentalized, closeness went with sex and he wasn't much for a cuddle afterwards, he probably wouldn't see the point. Wufei obligingly shifted on the bed to leave him some room and found his right shoulder hanging over empty space, nearly up against the wall.

"A bed, agreed," he grunted. "And some sheets and stuff." That was obvious, of course, but he was thinking of having to change them after sex, as his abdominal muscles flinched away from the sticky, cool spot on his stomach. And that was nothing to the uncomfortable wetness he was starting to feel between his legs, running onto the cover. He lifted a hand, but what would he do once he wiped it away? He felt Heero lean away from the bed, nearly entirely off of it. When the weight returned besides him, the towel dropped onto his stomach. He grunted in lieu of thanks and started the cleanup.

"You'll need some furniture," Heero continued, propping himself up on one elbow again, eyes on the crack of sunlight in the taped sheet covering the window. "I know a place they have cheap stuff."

Wufei nodded. His uncle Wai had made it clear that finances were not too big an issue, his father's inheritance could cover him now that his clan was no longer providing. But why buy expensive furnishings for this shack? Especially when he wouldn't be here for months on end? Ah, but there was one thing he would spend money on.

"The bed will be comfortable. My days of sleeping on the floor on rotten mattresses are over," he stated imperiously. Heero shrugged, his eyes dropping indifferently to his bunk.

"Sheets...Clothes. I noticed you don't have many," Heero continued. Yes, Wufei had left the silk and finery behind him in Hangzhou.

"There's an army surplus nearby." And Wufei was willing to bet Heero had a frequent buyer card. "You'll need fatigues and tough jackets, but also casuals. We don't do much undercover work, but we often have to move around incognito."

Wufei nodded impatiently, this was similar to the war.

"What else? Ah, some more dishes." Heero's mouth lifted in a cold half-smile. Wufei had commented acidly on his 'camping out' when he realized his partner only had the one aluminum plate.

"Some proper tea," Wufei grunted, tossing the towel on the floor on Heero's side.

"More towels," Heero said reprovingly, picking it up and tossing it with condescending precision into the open box where he put his dirty clothes, half way across the room.

"An extra stool," Wufei countered, and that should have been at the top of the list; Heero had had to eat his breakfast sitting on the counter this morning.

"Lubricant."

"...Yes." The smell of camphor was mixing with semen and sweat and the dusty-plaster smell that seemed to permeate the workshop, making his stomach clench slightly. He sat up on the prickly cover.

"Shower."

"Uh? Oh, you mean now."

Wufei stood, wincing, more at the small trickle of tepid liquid against his inner thighs than any real pain. He glanced back, almost against his better judgment. Heero had taken his vacated position and was stretching full out without any hint of embarrassment. Grace and power, the muscles of a predator rippling beneath golden skin...

"Gun, ammo, flak jacket-" Wufei said as if to banish the thoughts that had rippled through his mind in an echo of that movement.

"We'll get those tomorrow before we leave," Heero answered lazily, eyes slowly blinking once as he gazed at the ceiling.

"Assuming we leave."

"We will, trust me- better yet, trust Une. She'll have our asses out of here as soon as she possibly can."

"Is there that much trouble out there still?" Wufei felt torn between eagerness and gloom.

"A fair amount. Not as much as I'd have thought." For the first time, Wufei realized that Heero himself must have had the same doubts about peace that he had. "But enough fires, and Une just doesn't have that many reliable agents. She can't use a lot of ex-OZ, ex-White Fang, ex-Rebels-"

"Hence Foxwood."

"Sam is actually a very proficient commander, though he doesn't hold the rank. There's a lot of administrative complexities that Une has dodged, so you'll meet a lot of 'consultants' like Sam. Actually the whole special ops section is rather...unofficial, and very hurriedly put together. That's why they let us both in so easily, without much training. But we're still kept on a tight leash, and Foxwood is our immediate supervisor. Une is our superior, along with Grecko, you'll meet him when he gets back from that conference on L1. Don't take Sam personally. That's just the way he is. He's got a formidable exterior and he won't give you an inch, but he won't let any emotion or hostility interfere with his work and he's very efficient."

"Oh trust me, I have a lot of practice dealing with that kind of guy," Wufei grunted and headed towards the shower before Heero could think of a proper comeback.

When he returned to the room five minutes later, he found Heero dressed and in front of his open laptop.

Heero's face was granite, his eyes were as cold as Wing's, but his body was straining at the leash like a hound who'd heard the horn.

"Chang, are you vaccinated against the full panel of exotic diseases?"

"Yes, of course," Wufei answered tightly. "Master O didn't want me coming down with anything weird while fighting in Asia or the African continent. Or L2 for that matter."

"Good." Heero twisted the laptop his way. Wufei's heart hammered as he took in the familiar form of a mission planning statement. He leaned forward eagerly on the edge of the desk, looking over Heero's shoulders. Read the specs. Huh, Une was throwing them into the deep end!

The excitement rose, but he controlled it, honed it, kept it ready for use. Heero was a live wire besides him, but nothing showed in his face and eyes. Only Wufei could read his anticipation.

Breathe. In. Out.

Now.

"When do we leave?"


	16. Codes of Conduct

Real gold is not afraid of the fire of the crucible  
\--- Chinese saying

 

"It should be illegal!"

Wufei blinked, then dropped his eye to the liquid in his plastic cup that managed to taste watery, bitter and bland all at the same time; the plastic was more appetizing. "The coffee? I entirely agree."

"No, I meant you!"

"What are you talking about, woman?"

Sally ran her hands through her hair, which was limp and a bit greasy, falling from her usual style. Her lips were cracked and pale, her eyes dull and inked round with fatigue. But there was some combative energy still burning in the depths.

"I haven't slept more than-" her eyes glazed for two seconds "- seven hours in the last forty eight. I have spent my time talking to scum, chasing paper, arguing with idiots, eating garbage out of that dispenser. I happen to know that you've had even less sleep, that you've spent the last ten hours interrogating Ian Thrace, and that's after two weeks tracking him down and playing 'dodge the bullet' with his small private army. Yet you dare stand there- sit there, at your desk, as if you'd just had a refreshing snooze and a good meal! By all rights, Chang, you should look like- like a microwaved dog turd!"

Wufei carefully put down his cup of 'coffee'. "Thanks for that lovely image, Agent Po. Apart from insulting you with my very existence, is there anything I can actually do for you?"

"You can at least pretend to be human!" Sally snapped.

"I'll do my best. Anything else?"

"Can you sign off on this so we can get out of here?" Sally's voice sounded desperate.

Wufei went carefully over the papers, ignoring her hollow groan, then signed on the line.

"Here you go, Sally. You might want to get to bed now."

"Gee, you think?! I must look terrible," Sally added, in a slightly hopeful voice that left him room to disagree.

"Well, I wouldn't say you looked like a - ah, microwaved turd either, Sally-" Wufei said politely.

Sally smiled, crinkling her tired eyes, knowing a Chang compliment when she heard it-

"-since I've never seen such a thing, though looking at you I think I'm getting an idea of what it might -"

He dodged the roll of paper aimed at his head with the ease of practice and turned back to his keyboard.

"Agent Po."

Damn, he hadn't heard Heero approach. He was tired, though he'd take a jump off a cliff before admitting it to Sally, much less to Heero. He'd even drink the - for lack of a better term - 'coffee'.

"Heero." Sally grinned. "Do me one of two favors. Either kill this idiot you call a partner or call me Sally already."

"I apologize if he was rude," Heero said seriously and Wufei shook his head at his keyboard. His partner had gotten a bit better at distinguishing banter from serious arguing during their time together; Heero must be tired too if he'd misinterpreted the bit he'd overheard.

"Oh Heero." Sally's voice was suddenly gentle and mature. "We were just joking around. Don't worry about it. When are you two robots going to go to bed?"

"Good question. Chang?" Heero glanced at him.

"As soon as I finish this. Thrace cracked, by the way."

"Hn."

"That's Heero-ese for 'good, let's get some rest'? I'm inquiring as a physician here," Sally drawled.

"Yes, we'll leave in a bit. Goodbye Sally," Wufei grumbled dismissively and started typing again.

Sally left with a tired wave and went to pick up Lucrezia who had fallen asleep on a chair with her feet on someone's desk.

Heero sat down. His movements were not as lithe as usual, they were heavy and his eyes were a bit dull. Wufei felt a distant flash of pride that he himself showed no visible signs of fatigue to his partner. Hopefully Heero wouldn't notice he was deleting half the characters he was typing. As long as some of it made sense in the end.

"Sending a summary of Thrace's confession?"

"Yes. I'll cc you since you weren't in the room," Wufei muttered distractedly.

"Were you?"

"No, I was in the observation deck."

"Who got him to talk?"

"Sam. He said 'spill, or I bring my two boys back in to see you'. Thrace cracked like an egg."

Heero rubbed his eyes. "Ten hours. He was tougher than I thought. Hurry up."

"Brunswick can swing by and drop me off at the house, Yuy. Go home if you're tired," Wufei said with a pretense of solicitude.

Heero just gave him a look. Wufei had created a small mental cataloger of ‘looks by Heero Yuy’ since their association. This one was number 9, 'cut the crap, Chang, and get on with it', so he did.

"Done. Let's go home before Grecko reads it and buries us in paperwork."

"Hn."

 

 

The door closed behind them with a comforting click. The two-week knot of tension between Wufei's shoulder blades suddenly loosened; he had to stop in his tracks and stretch to cover a stagger. Heero dropped his bags and laptop at the door and headed towards the kitchen.

Wufei didn't remember walking to the couch. Suddenly it was there, in front of him.

"Do you want something?" Heero was at the fridge with a bottle of water in his hand. He was wiping his mouth with his sleeve. His face looked a bit pale against the tanned skin of his hand, but otherwise he looked fine. Bastard.

"Maybe some tea if you're making some." Wufei sat on the couch and picked up the book he'd dropped two weeks ago when the 'fire alarm' had come through. He flipped through it idly...then, making sure Heero was busy with the kettle, turned the book right side up.

He blinked slowly at the characters on the page. Did he want to read...? It was three in the afternoon. He had a few hours to kill before going to bed, if he didn't want to be jet-lagged. He focused on the characters and blinked again.

"Oolong? Green? White?"

"Huh?" Wufei realized his eyes had been closed and he snapped them open. "Oh. Oolong please." He looked at Heero carefully, but the latter was rummaging around the packets of tea Wufei had collected and hadn't noticed.

He blinked again, then rubbed his eyes viciously. He'd drink his tea then go outside. Take a walk around the block, for what that was worth; the storage facility and construction sites would be particularly pretty under the May sunshine, and there'd be birds perched on the barbed wire nearby. Oh well at least it would clear his head. Maybe he could go to the shooting range...

"Chang?"

Hm?

"Chang. Come on, wake up or you'll screw your internal clock." The voice was at a prudent distance from an ex-Gundam pilot who was just as twitchy as Heero when woken u-

"I'm awake!" Wufei snapped, his body jerking to something like alertness.

"Are you now..."

The voice curled with a hint of amusement, Heero's version of laughter. Wufei realized that he'd started up onto one elbow -

\- he was _lying_ on the couch -

\- someone had swung his feet up onto the couch and he'd _not even woken up_ -

\- and added insult to injury by covering him with the spare blanket.

He glared sleepily at Heero. The 'just resting my eyes' excuse had about as much chance of flying as a roasted duck.

"How long was I asleep?" he grumbled reluctantly. Surely only a few minutes, he remembered he'd just put his book down and-

"An hour. You looked like you needed it." Heero was seated at the kitchen counter in front of his open laptop, a bottle of water and a half-eaten sandwich at hand. He was leaning his chin against a fist and looking across at Wufei with slight condescension. He looked perfectly fine and quite awake.

Score one for Yuy.

Wufei glared, acknowledging the touch with his usual bad grace. Heero's lips curved slightly.

The L5 Preventer stood up and stretched, then wandered over to pick up Heero's sandwich.

"What are you working on now?" he grumbled, returning to the couch while taking a bite. Spam and none-too-fresh cheese over long-conservation bread. Lovely. That reminded him that the fridge would have to be emptied of its disintegrating contents later.

"Nothing," Heero said, despite evidence to the contrary. Which meant one of his own programs he played with when off-duty, like a dog chewing a bone. "Grecko hasn't come back to us yet."

Wufei snorted. "Give it a few hours."

"Hm. Want to do anything tomorrow?"

Tomorrow afternoon, it went without saying. Tomorrow morning, after they'd caught up on their sleep, would be personal downtime.

"Assuming Grecko doesn't drag us back to ops?" Wufei muttered.

"Yes."

"Don't know." His head felt clearer, but his entire future went no further than the moment he'd be able to go to bed in a few hours. Tomorrow was terra incognita. "Want to go to the track?" he hazarded. It was an unspoken agreement that the first twenty four hours back from a mission were free of any kind of physical training or sparring. Even Heero needed a break from time to time. Or at least Wufei wanted to flatter himself into thinking so.

"It might rain," Heero said distantly, concentrating most of his attention on his program.

"Oh I'm sorry, Yuy. We don't want to get you all muddy. How inconsiderate of me."

Heero ignored that. It was pretty weak.

Wufei glanced at the tool shop part of their digs, twisting over the couch's back. His own bike was under a tarp, a sleek dark shape near the loading door. Heero's was near one of the workbenches. "Weren't you making adjustments to your cylinders?"

"Hai. I might work on it tomorrow morning. We can go to the track in the afternoon. If you don't mind the competition."

Wufei snorted as he got up and tossed the sandwich in the bin with spot-on precision. "In your dreams, Yuy. Stick to Gundams."

A soupy brown mess pressed against the transparent sides of the vegetable drawer was probably the remains of bean sprouts. They tended to go off after three days, let alone two weeks. Wufei glared at the mess, leaning on the open fridge door. Damn Une. If she would do her job correctly, they'd have a bit more advance warning before a small fire became a raging inferno. He swallowed half a bottle of water - his nap had left him dry - and then bent to clean out the fridge, penance for his earlier moment of weakness.

"Need a hand?" Heero asked innocently, fingers firmly flying over the keys with no intention of stopping.

Wufei glared at the straight back at the counter behind him that seemed to be laughing at him. Don't rub it in, Yuy.

"You shouldn't buy fresh food," Heero said after the third thump of something landing in the bin.

"You like to eat it too," Wufei grumbled.

"It's a waste to have to throw it away though," Heero pointed out. Tappity-tappity-tappity-...

"You're right. Tell you what, I'll scrape it off the bottom of the fridge, slap it between two slices of bread and you can call it a sandwich."

Score: Chang.

The typing stuttered to a halt. "That sandwich - the one you took and then threw away - was perfectly nutritious," Heero groused but not very strongly. From the way the spam had browned at the edges, he'd not taken a bite out of it himself for a good ten minutes; they both knew Wufei had the better eye for those small details and had noticed.

Wufei made a quick tally of the fridge's remains. It didn't take very long at all, and there was nothing very appetizing. Take-out again.

"What do you want to eat tonight?" he asked his house-mate politely.

Heero shrugged. "You choose."

Wufei had already decided on Indonesian, he thought his taste buds could do with a bit of spiciness after the 'coffee', the sugary snacks from the dispenser at work, and that sandwich. Heero would not disagree, he never did. He didn't seem to care much what he ate. Though the box of horrible dry-rations skulking beside the kitchen counter had not been touched since Wufei had moved in.

Wufei took his bottle and sat back on the couch. He didn't bother with his book. He didn't have his glasses on him anyway, they were still in his bag.

His tunnel vision had cleared. He glanced around the converted workshop, assessing it automatically, though nothing had changed in their absence. It was still the same unattractive but practical box. In the three months since Wufei had moved in, however, a few traces of his presence now marred the coldly utilitarian room.

The biggest change was the living area, which Wufei had set up knowing that sooner or later he'd not be able to fend off Sally's pressure to visit. He could be very rude when he wanted to be, but an inborn sense of propriety drew a fine line which he could not cross. Whereas Heero just said 'no'.

The big beige couch stood out like a comfortable oasis in the purely functional room. There was a small table in front of it and a tall lamp to give him light while he read. He sat there from time to time, while Heero worked at the counter-top, endured his strenuous daily training, or busied himself in the tool shop. At first Heero had treated this area like a gap in his functional setup, an aberration. Recently he'd unbent enough to join Wufei on the wide couch on occasion, to flip through specification manuals or mechanics magazines.

There was a second stool at the counter, some additional plates and cutlery, proper food in the fridge, a sword stand holding his blade and two bokken...Wufei considered himself a guest here. Heero had refused to sub-let him the rooms on account of that being more trouble with local taxes than it was worth. Wufei bought the food and the furniture in payment, and kept the traces of his presence minimal.

The only spot of color in the room was the small house altar near the door on the left-hand side. It was a simple, flat wooden frame decorated with strips of red paper, holding an incense burner, a stone tablet with his family's name and a small jade dragon Wai had brought as a gift. Wufei had built it and set it up for his uncle's visit, a month after he moved in. He'd apologized to Heero; this was Yuy's home, the shrine was an imposition, but his uncle Wai was his only remaining family even if Wufei was no longer part of the clan, and this was a mark of respect towards the old man. Heero had not objected, and after Wai's visit the shrine hadn't come down. Shortly before the latest mission, Wufei had found a small bowl of rice placed in front of the incense burner, a pair of chopsticks planted in it indicating an offering. He'd wondered which of his many dead Heero was feeding. But he never asked.

Nothing had changed in their shared space during the two weeks of absence, of course. Heero's security was quite thorough. The only invader appeared to be a spider quietly weaving its web between two kitchen shelves. Wufei frowned at it.

"I'll call the cleaners tomorrow. No wait, it's Saturday. Isn't it?" He rubbed his eyes again.

"Yes."

"I'll call them Monday, assuming we're not off again." Wufei thought it was beholden of him to clean the place as well as take care of the food to repay the permanent invitation to stay, but he had never mastered housework, and had no intentions of starting. He'd never be able to do it up to Yuy's level of satisfaction anyway. He called in a local cleaning firm to do the job whenever he could, and then let Heero follow the poor employees around every step of the way with the soldier's usual paranoia, to make sure they didn't plant bugs or demolition charges while they dusted.

The cleaners, his uncle Wai, Sally Po, Lucrezia Noin, Brunswick the one time the guard had driven Wufei home...so many small invasions of a space that Heero thought of as his safe-house, a place no-one had entered until Wufei had shown up. If Heero minded he said nothing. Maybe he considered it the price to pay to have a partner who could keep up with him.

Wufei smiled fiercely at the innocent, soon-to-be-evicted spider. Gunshots echoed in his ears, adrenaline flickered in his tired body. Kinshasa had been...challenging. Infiltrating the heavily guarded compound, wiring the bomb to the bunker, taking out the patrols in total silence as dawn washed over the sky, the shout of alarm and the whine of bullets...Wufei's fist curled against his thigh. The man had been a head higher, twice his weight and about to pull the pin on a grenade. One blow had taken him out. Heero's brief nod of thanks glowed in Wufei’s mind. Nothing more than that curt gesture; it had been more than enough. That was how their partnership worked and it was perfect. Thoughts expanded through Wufei's tired mind like oil on the surface of a pool. In battle, they were...

"Really Chang, if I'd known you were that tired, I'd have sent you home hours ago."

Damn it all, his eyes had closed again of their own volition...

Score: Yuy.

In battle they were harmony and power, they were unstoppable. But once the bullets stopped flying, the mundane snared them; paperwork, obligations, interrogations, public relations, Une and Grecko, Peace... it drained the strength, deadened the warrior's edge. It was necessary and it was boring.

They fought back to back like brothers. But after the battle, they lived together like two male tigers in a very small cage. It kept the numbing boredom at bay.

"Try not to sleep now though or you'll be out of synch." Heero's voice had a touch of cool amusement rippling through its usual neutral tones. Then his eyes narrowed. "I guess I'll have to keep you up for a little while longer."

Wufei looked at Heero with a stir of horror and incredulity. "What... ?"

Heero stood slowly, closing the laptop with his eyes still on his partner. Wufei caught himself shrinking into the couch cushions. No way. No way! Two weeks of sleeping short shifts in flea motels where the chairs were more appealing than the beds, a whole day solid of breaking into a heavily fortified compound full of armed mercenaries, fighting, minor injuries, Heero had caught a shot on his flak jacket that bruised his left side over several ribs...Then forty eight hours of interrogating captives, sorting trouble, placating Internal Affairs who failed to understand why you couldn't enter a heavy duty bunker without blowing parts of it up...No fucking way!

Heero was five feet away and moving like a tiger 

"Um..." But even if Wufei’s partner was, in fact, completely inhuman and was actually contemplating sex at this juncture, Wufei would be boiled in rice wine before he actually admitted he wasn't up to it. Of course his body would probably make that point for him. Humiliation now, or later? Damn!

Heero leaned over the couch, hands on either side of Wufei's head.

"I know a way we could both stay awake..."

"... Yuy..."

"Why don't we go..."

"I-..."

"...and work on my bike."

Oh. Oh, good one.

...Match: Yuy.

Wufei scowled, but it was half-hearted. He'd been the one to teach this different kind of sparring to Heero, so in a way the aptitude of the pupil reflected on the master. Or at least that's what he told himself to shore up his wounded pride.

Besides, he was only losing this badly because he was exhausted and his brain felt like a drained battery. Heero's slightly wistful half-smile reflected this. Oh, it was perfectly fair to take advantage of an opponent's weakness. Heero's superb stamina gave him an edge today. Tomorrow would be an entirely different matter and they both knew it.

"Good idea. I don't want you to have any excuse when I leave you eating my dirt on the track tomorrow," Wufei said lazily as he followed Heero to the tool shop. He blithely ignored the snort this earned him.

New match... 

 

 

Wufei woke up with dawn sunlight pouring through the cracks of the blinds, decorating his small room with slices of gold. They fell on the big double bed, the bedside table, the small chest of drawers and wardrobe that were the only objects in his room. His study, an equally small room next door, was full of books and knick-knacks, but his bedroom was bare and sober.

He could hear Heero move around two doors down. Then, very faint, the sound of laptop keys clicking. Wufei shared his exasperation with the ceiling. Didn't the man have anything better to do? Oh well...

Waiting until the tapping was in full blast, Wufei popped into the bathroom and took a quick shower. Refreshed, he headed to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. He thought he heard the door open upstairs, Heero going to take his own shower maybe. If his partner needed anything from the main room, he'd wait until Wufei had left. They wouldn't even see each other until lunchtime at the earliest.

Tea in hand, Wufei went back to his room, leaving Heero the use of the main room if he wanted it. He sat down on his bed cross-legged, back straight against the wall a few inches from the window blind, and flipped through a magazine, reading the political editorials while he drank his tea and ate a ration bar.

Silence filled the house, bar the slightest hint of a tap of keys. Wufei breathed in, breathed out. He let the magazine fall from his hands, put his cup down on the bedside table, and slipped to the floor, onto the thin matting he'd placed in its center. He breathed again, feeling his chi travel through his body, cleansing. After weeks of constantly living, sleeping, eating, working with others - even if it was just Heero - the solitude revived him. He slipped into meditation like a seal into a deep pool of water. His center was easy to find these days.

Time ceased. The weeks of pressure faded, the tense boredom of long watches, the bursts of danger...It had been good. Those twenty four hours, poised on the edge, the two partners against a hundred or so mercenaries out to kill them; it had been very good. He pulled his meditation around him. Each memory was picked up, analyzed, then stored away and on to the next until there was nothing but the calm of a successful mission, the peace of a battle won, the contentment of being. He let the nothingness wash over him for a little while.

Now he was ready to deal with Heero...He'd felt his partner pace in front of his door once or twice. His meditation was deep, but old war instincts kept him aware of his surroundings on some level. Heero treated Wufei's personal time with respect, so whatever was bringing him up to Wufei's door to hesitate, listen and then leave again must be of the utmost importance.

"Come in."

Heero had been walking away for the second time. Wufei heard the steps hesitate, then return. His door opened.

"We're needed. Grecko called."

"Damn him, and may all his descendants be stupid and ugly," Wufei said conversationally as he stood, brushing himself off.

"Ian Thrace tried to kill himself last night," Heero stated indifferently.

"Who was the idiot who stopped him?"

"No-one. He can't tie a slipknot to save his life." Wufei gave Heero a long look but of course his partner had said that perfectly seriously.

"I guess you can be a bandit lord and organize your own private militia in peace time, yet still have some gaps in your education. He could have made a bit of an effort and spared us all the expense of shipping him off for years of trials and appeals in Mumbai," Wufei grumbled as he slipped out of the loose pants he slept in and hastily drew on his usual outfit of jeans and a Chinese tunic.

"That's the opinion of everyone in Ops. Unfortunately Internal Affairs know this. They launched an internal investigation as a matter of course. Grecko is holding the fort, but he needs us there to finish our reports-"

"And get ready to present a united front and a wrapped-up case, I get it." Wufei sighed. Well, they often went for a week or two without a fire, they'd have other days to catch up on their rest. "Let's go."

 

 

Ops center was an old building, hidden underground. Wufei didn't know what it had been used for previously. It was in Romefeller heartland and doted with interrogation rooms and cells, so he didn't really want to know. Sometimes, alone at night, when neon whined down its somber hallways and the ventilation groaned, screams seem to drift by, echoes behind the dank quiet.

Wufei stopped his contemplation of the ceiling - its cheap, stained paneling would drive an aesthete to suicide - and glanced at Grecko to see if the man's mouth had stopped moving yet.

"-now this, how do you expect Anthea to be able to sort this out, Yuy? You- I mean, you actually put 'bribes' in an expense report! We call them Investigative Expenses, Local Information Gathering operating costs, and we put them _here_ -"

Wufei tuned the monotone out again. His eyes wandered over the gray walls, the kind of color you found in prisons. Not that anyone complained; they'd rather the budget go to flack jackets than coats of paint. Grecko was the senior manager of the Preventer's Intervention Division, but even his office looked like a badly kept broom closet; pipes and electrical cords running across the walls, cheap neon, the ugliest filing cabinets ever made, bolted to the wall for some reason...

"-you do remember that your credit line goes direct to the Division's account? We need to know everything you withdraw. Here, what's this? Oh, the explosives. We'll get to that later, but if you need to buy demolition charges you must put the expenses in this column, 'Ammunition and Ordnance', and-"

Wufei tried to keep his impatience in check. If only Une hadn't been at that meeting in New York. She was the one who normally took charge of their mission reports, and she went to the heart of the matter. She left the paperwork for them to finish later, and their meetings normally lasted ten minutes. Wufei rubbed his hands, distracted by the damp cold settling in his fingers. Foxwood claimed the air-conditioning in Ops had two settings; muggy and 'London at three on a drizzling winter morning'.

"And I know, Yuy, that Anthea has already told you this time and again, but you must fill in the travel reports or-"

There was a war going on. Screw Total Pacifism; this was an all-out battle, bloody and violent, no prisoners and no mercy. It was waged between Anthea Stenhelz and Heero Yuy. 

Anthea was the...what was her title again? Wufei thought of her as the Bureaucrat in Chief and that suited her well enough. She was the terror of any agent who ever filed a form.

And then she met Heero Yuy.

When Heero had gained a partner, they both fell into the official slot of Field Agents and they had to deal with her. Wufei tended to go through paperwork hastily, filling it in as badly as he could get away with. When Anthea had rounded on him, he'd reminded himself that it was dishonorable to strike a woman, or force-feed her paper for that matter, and made the required corrections with ill grace.

Heero filled in the reports he saw as necessary with scrupulous exactitude.

The ones he saw as unnecessary, he scribbled 'Irrelevant' across the top and filed in the bin.

Whatever Wufei's faults, it had been his partner who had become Anthea's chew toy. But if she thought she'd be able to nag him into obedience...The first day, he'd made her angry. The second day, he'd made her cry. The third day he ripped up a folder of paper three inches thick and shoved her out of the room in a confetti shower of mutilated forms. It went downhill after that. Two weeks later she'd made a formal complaint and discovered that she had a fervent admirer in Grecko, who was an excellent administrator himself, and happened to be Heero's superior.

Wufei cast a discreet glance at Heero. He looked just about ready to kill. Great. If only he could put that negative energy towards filling in the paperwork. Or killing the Stenhelz woman. Grecko was harder to shake off than a pit-bull on a bone.

"Sir, Yuy can correct those forms later," he offered, for the third time. Everyone in the room knew this meant that Wufei would correct them for him.

"No, Agent Chang, we need to go through this properly or he'll never learn." Grecko pointed out. "Agent Yuy has to follow proper procedures in order to-"

In theory every agent did his own reports and forms, and was accountable for them. In practice, Wufei insisted Heero fill in all the important reports while he took care of the trivia with gritted teeth. Unfortunately they'd not had time to do this today, they'd been too busy looking into important matters to worry about who did which bit properly. Or improperly, in Heero's case. Damn it, why had Yuy brought the forms with him to Grecko's office? Wufei had told him he'd go over them later. They were both busy, but he'd have managed it. The way the Division Manager was going on now, they'd be stuck in this fridge of an office until their retirement!

Wufei didn't mind Grecko that much, normally. The man was a miracle maker and dedicated to peace. He had no family, no hobbies, he spent most of his waking hours in the office, pooling their forces and resources to put out blazes as far away as Mars. Though he only fought with pen and phone, he was a good deal tougher than he looked. Wufei would rather die ten deaths than do that job, but he understood its importance. Heero saw Grecko as a hindrance on par with something he used to crush with his Gundam, but Wufei saw him as a necessary evil that he tolerated.

"Can we move on?" Wufei asked sharply, feeling his patience running a little thin. Okay, he'd be the first to admit that Heero and paperwork got along like ten tons of hydrogen fuel and a match, but the Preventers had the perfect weapon at their disposal, maybe they shouldn't be blunting it on paper. Une always let Wufei discreetly deal with the necessary admin duties, they had an understanding on that. Damn the woman for being away.

Grecko blinked his watery green eyes - if there was a face built for glasses, Grecko had it, but his vision was 20/20, strangely enough. His oval head, small nose and pale, papery skin seemed lost without a pair of specs, undefined and unfocused.

"Move on to what?" Grecko seemed surprised there might be something more important than Anthea and her forms. Office scuttlebutt was that he had a major crush on her. Wufei tried to rid his mind of that particular image. It was about as appealing as the mating habit of stick insects.

"There are some more leads that we need to explore." Wufei tried to unclench his jaw a bit, but his voice still sounded flat. "That Chilean mercenary we pulled in, Thrace's sergeant. Humbrild did a workup on him as a matter of course. She may have found something interesting. We think he's Syndicate. We need to-"

"You see, this is where a bit of forbearance on both your parts would have made things easier," Grecko complained, shuffling through papers. Wufei happened to know the man had photographic memory and a mind like a steel trap for facts. The paper was merely his comforter. He was telling off a couple of ex-Gundam pilots as if they'd been caught smoking behind the bicycle shed, he had to have _something_ shielding him from that reality.

"What do you mean, Sir?" Heero's voice was soft and neutral.

"We need to review your procedural approach to downgrading the threat level of a target," Grecko said severely.

There was a moment of silence.

"You want us to put on kid gloves next time we attack a bunch of heavily armed militia?" Wufei finally translated, not quite believing his ears.

"Thrace's papers were in the bunker. The one you blew up," Grecko explained in a heavy tone of voice as if catering to heavy-handed brutes was a part of his job he didn't like much. "We might have lost a link to the Syndicate when you destroyed it."

"I hacked into his computer system beforehand," Heero replied, still so patient. "You have all the information he had. And there was no trace of a link to the Syndicate."

"He might not have kept it on his system," Grecko immediately countered. "He might have only had hard copies." His fingers riffled forms, pausing to wipe sadly at a coffee ring on one of Heero's.

"That would be ridiculously inefficient."

Wufei winced as Grecko bridled. Don't insult the paper, Yuy! We'll never get out of here.

"We interrogated Thrace," Wufei said quickly, trying to head off the lecture. "He said nothing about this. I'm certain he didn't know this man had links to the Syndicate, he'd have told us otherwise."

"Ah yes. The interrogation," Grecko said heavily and drew out yet another folder from the pile. "After what happened last night, Internal Affairs are all over it. We need to review your codes of conduct, gentlemen."

"We didn't lay a finger on him," Wufei snapped.

"Well, Oberwiller from Internals says that we may be on shaky ground on that. He doesn't see how Thrace cracked so quickly otherwise. You do know that threatening him with bodily harm is also an offense against the constitution, right, Chang? I mean, you do _know_ our charter, right?"

Wufei rolled his eyes, mildly aggravated. But the armrest under Heero's hands suddenly gave an ominous creak.

"All our interrogations are recorded. Sir," Heero said softly.

"Yes, but you are an expert hacker, Yuy, and you happen to be the one who set up our backup and save procedure for all surveillance on base-"

Wufei stiffened in his chair, not quite sure he could believe what this insect had just insinuated.

"Are you accusing me of something?" Heero's voice was calm. 

"Let's just say it’s shaky ground, Agents." Grecko flicked through his folder like it was a prayer wheel, again and again. "If Thrace lodges a complaint in the ESUN court, this could seriously jeopardize the proceedings against him -"

"He wouldn't dare." Heero shrugged dismissively.

"Ah you see, that's the kind of attitude that has Oberwiller all over my back! I know you're a fairly good agent, Yuy - "

Wufei's eyes widened. 'Fairly'?!

"- saying this for your own good as well as to insure the proper working of the Division. The codes of conduct are here for a reason. I know you are not used to following such a thing, but that's the difference between being a Preventer Agent and a - a -"

"Terrorist," Wufei said and he'd had enough. Fairly good? No one got to call his partner - or himself - 'fairly' anything. Especially not a pen-pushing reptile like Grecko!

He leaned forward, moving his chair towards Grecko's desk smoothly, putting his hands on the sacrosanct paperwork with deliberate slowness. Grecko's eyes flashed a warning that Wufei completely ignored. Behind him he heard Heero straighten up and lean forward, following his lead without question.

"I think - Sir - that you've made things quite clear," Wufei said conversationally with an undertone of steel. "We'll review our codes of conduct so that next time a weak piece of filth like Thrace decides to kill himself because he's going to rot in jail for the rest of his life, we will be absolutely blameless."

"Good," Grecko said, a bit uncertainly, his eyes flinching towards Heero. Wufei didn't need to turn around to know exactly what kind of look his partner had on his face. The kind that could freeze helium.

"We are perfectly aware of the charter - despite your insinuations. Sir." Wufei continued.

Grecko opened his mouth to slam that one down, but Heero abruptly pushed his chair back and stood up, and the administrator seemed to lose his train of thought.

"We will submit ourselves to a full review by Internal Affairs if you wish us to," Wufei added calmly. Behind him, Heero moved towards one of the walls, in a silence as deadly as a loaded gun. Wufei heard him pause and shuffle around in the corners as if looking for cameras that could record anything violent that might happen in the dank, gray office.

"What- Agent Yuy, sit down please." Grecko's eyes were darting between them, distracted, but his voice was firm.

"Is that what you wish us to do?"

"What-"

"We would have to run this past the Commander first," Wufei added, knowing that Une was the only thing Grecko feared more than a fire in the filing room, and that Heero and Wufei were her best agents - no goddamn 'fairly' about it!

Grecko licked his lips, but just as he was about to answer, Heero tapped the wall as if testing the soundproofing. "Er," Grecko said.

"Is that what you wish us to do, Sir?"

"Agent Yuy-"

"Yuy gets a bit tense in these kinds of situations," Wufei explained without turning around to check what his partner was doing; he didn't need to. "Your implications upset him. He takes his job very seriously. Sir." Behind him, he heard Heero try the doorknob thoughtfully, then fiddle with the lock.

"I-"

Wufei rose abruptly, leaning every so slightly forward. This distracted Grecko just as he was about to insist Heero sit down.

"So I take it we're clear on the codes of conduct violation," Wufei said in a voice as smooth as a knife. "What was the problem again?"

"I- well, the paperwork- it's quite-" Grecko showed his metal by sounding somewhat defiant still.

"This paperwork?" Wufei held the sheaf he'd picked up from Grecko's desk while the man had been distracted by Heero approaching slowly, like a tiger stalking a tethered lamb.

"Er-"

"We'll go and complete it now. Was that all?"

Heero stopped a hair's breath from Wufei's shoulder and they stood staring down at Grecko.

Ten seconds later they were out of the office.

"Well, that could have gone worse," Wufei muttered. "Sam, your turn."

Foxwood had been dozing on a chair. He jerked awake and the reports from the various teams he'd set on the field in Kinshasa cascaded to the floor.

"Bollocks! Oh-...Just gather them up and stuff them back in this folder, thanks, Yuy. You boys done already?" He stared at his watch. "No way! No way anybody gets out of The Gecko's office in less than half an hour when Oberwiller and Internal Affairs are on the warpath. What did you guys do, shoot him?" Sam sounded slightly hopeful. With reports and paperwork from four separate teams, he'd be there for the next three hours.

"No, it went fairly smoothly." Wufei smiled.

Heero stuffed the forms he'd picked up back into Sam's folder with a good deal more violence than they deserved. "He suggested we forced a confession out of Thrace and manipulated surveillance to-"

"Let it go, Yuy." Wufei sighed, rubbed his eyes. "I think we made our point."

Heero scowled, he was still angry. So was Wufei for that matter. 'Fairly good agent'...Pen pusher!

"What did you do, Chang?" Sam's voice was suddenly grave.

Wufei shrugged. "He seemed to doubt our interrogation techniques could wring a confession from Thrace in ten hours. So we gave him a sampler. He'll remember it when Internal Affairs ask him if we could get Thrace to break without compromising our charter."

Sam was grinning now, a dangerous smirk. "So you did the old Good Cop, Bad Cop routine on him, hm? Or rather, with you two, the Bad Cop, Worse Cop routine. Did he look convinced?"

"He's not popped out of his office to call you in yet, has he," Wufei said mildly.

"You do know that scoring points against your manager may not be the smartest thing in the interest of your promotion, right?" Sam looked like he already knew the answer.

"Remind me to care."

"I hear you, kid, I hear you. Go on, get out of here before he gets his courage back and hauls you over the coals again. Oh, just a sec."

Sam took two steps forward to stand in front of them, looked them both over with old, sharp eyes.

"I've heard back from my team leaders. Blowing up the bunker was a bit over the top, lads. I'm not too happy about the body count either. But if you two hadn't been there, I'd have lost some of my people for sure. So...you did your job. Take that home with you, and leave the goddamn paper here until tomorrow."

Wufei and Heero nodded, knowing that Sam's scrutiny was more thorough and demanding than Une's, Grecko's and Anthea's combined. Mission accomplished.

 

 

As he dropped his shoes by the door, Wufei tasted the silence that lingered around Heero since they'd left Ops. He glanced at his watch while Heero put down his laptop to shrug out of his jacket and take off his boots. Seven PM. That meant they'd been home for more than twenty four hours. And that meant-

Heero must have been deep in thought to have missed Wufei's first lunge. His partner stumbled with a gasp as Wufei gave him a savage shove, and barely righted himself on the springboard floor of the training area.

"What-"

Wufei walked slowly forward, flexing fingers and arms.

"You walked right into that one, Yuy," he murmured.

Heero opened his mouth, then realized Wufei wasn't talking about the attack just now.

"We did the job." The voice was as flexible as Gundanium slabs. "We took down Thrace and his mercenaries. We even found a lead to the Syndicate that Barton's been chasing for months now-"

"And we just spent way too long going over trivial details instead of those important facts." Wufei lunged on the last word. A light probing attack at chest height - Heero blocked it with crossed arms, but made no move to retaliate. He was glaring, wanting to protest.

"Don't give me that look." Wufei's other fist came low. Heero dropped his right arm to intercept, raised the left to defend - and then twisted out of the way of a swift kick aimed at his ankles. "What, can't you admit that you're not perfect in one area of your job?" Hardly the most important area by a very long shot, but Wufei knew that Heero would not accept any failing. He kept his voice steady, probing as much as his attacks.

Finally a flicker of true anger and Heero retaliated. "I filled in the forms that were relevant!" His fist lashed out, butting aside Wufei's light punch to reach for a shoulder to grab, spin his partner into a block. Wufei evaded lazily, noting the slight hitch in the movement as Heero pulled the muscles over his bruised ribs.

"That's not the point, Yuy." He spun into his parry and lashed out at Heero's ankles again. He followed through with a backhanded elbow towards that weakened side as Heero took a step out of the way.

"They should just let us do our job!" Heero snarled, blocking the elbow, a solid smack against his open palm. He feinted before hammering a fist towards Wufei's stomach.

"This is our job!" Wufei shouted, catching the fist and pinioning it, glaring at his partner. "We're not terrorists any more. We are accountable! You said so yourself!"

"And my mission reports reflect that!" Heero tore his wrist away, took a step back.

"Yes, it's all the rest that has Stenhelz up in arms!" Wufei moved, keeping the distance between them constant, violating Heero's personal space and daring him to retaliate.

"Fuck her!" A fist flashed towards his jaw.

"Why Yuy, I didn't know you liked her that much," Wufei purred as he batted the hasty blow aside.

Blue eyes widened - Wufei used the distraction and every ounce of his skill and strength to move right into his partner's guard, grab him by the arm, throw him over his hip and pin him to the ground.

For a split second, the cold mask slipped.

This was why...This was why they sparred, physically and verbally. Why Wufei kept probing Heero's stony facade, like a fencer trying to score a touch. It kept them on the edge where they thrived, it relieved the pressure, the aggression...But it was also - in a fleeting moment of surprise - to see past the great warrior who allowed Wufei to fight by his side, to catch a glimpse of the young man he lived with instead. Sometimes, when the touch was particularly good, or amusing, sometimes he even caught a hint of a real smile...

The moment passed almost instantly, followed by a few tense seconds of snarling, squirming in-fighting. They sparred on an almost daily basis when they weren't on missions. They had both continued to improve, and they knew each other's styles. Wufei had the tactical advantage however, and used his weight to override his partner's greater strength. Heero tested the hold with a few savage jerks then stopped moving.

"You're slipping, Yuy," Wufei murmured, trying to catch his breath. "Even Anthea could throw you, and she just might do so if she gets your forms back in their present condition."

That got him a look he knew well, one he remembered from the war; he could feel his eyebrows frizzle. 

"I could break her with two fingers. The woman doesn't have a muscle in her body."

"Oh trust me, her tongue is on steroids. But if you lose your grip with her one more time, Grecko will put you on charges."

"Let him," Heero ground out and twisted in the hold.

"No, Yuy." Wufei slammed the wrists he was holding on the matting with a snarl. "Let _me_. For the last time, let me fill in the goddamn paperwork and stop butting your head against an immovable object! I know your skull is denser than Gundanium, but why don't you let me -"

"You hate that shit too!"

"Yes, but I can stand it." Let me do this. I can't always measure up to you, but I can be the bridge between a perfect warrior and a world that cannot understand that level of purity.

Wufei relinquished his hold and stood up in one fluid movement, taking a few cautious steps back. Heero sat up, then drew his feet under him. But he didn't leap to the attack. Wufei balanced on the balls of his feet, waiting; they had some frustration to burn off, not to mention the adrenaline in which they'd stewed for the past few weeks-

Heero's eyes were luminous in the fading twilight gathering at the windows. They raked his frame up and down. He wasn't looking for a fight. Wufei shivered as if the look had been two rough hands pinning his body, kneading his skin.

Ah...

Another unwritten ritual that allowed two territorial beasts to live together. Nothing ever happened during a mission. This was part of their downtime; the chance to sleep somewhere safe, the respite, the few hours of solitude, the play sparring...and this. Sometimes, if the mission had been short and dangerous, they didn't even make it to the bedroom; it would end up with a savage screw against a wall. But most of the time they did this properly.

The bed creaked as two bodies landed on it in a tangle. There was a moment of squirming that was almost as vicious as the sparring downstairs. It quickly resolved itself. If Heero had been solely in charge, they would take turns on top, it would be rigorous and logical. Since Wufei was involved, it was neither. Another rule, another habit; Heero asked - with his eyes, with his body- Wufei acquiesced, and then all the minor victories and defeats, the touches and the sparring and the need would be tallied. The shudo, the mating of samurai, the 'way'. The winner took the loser, in a battle of every moment between them. Their way.

Heero glared up at Wufei, then conceded, relaxing slightly against the covers. Wufei smirked and lifted the shirt from his partner. Heero shook his head as chocolate locks fell into his eyes, then squirmed out of his pants as Wufei rummaged in the bedside table drawer for the tube of lubricant and the towels he prosaically kept there for these occasions. Wufei turned to find a naked body like a Greek sculptor's dream, lying back on his bed, a pair of blue eyes practically ripping his clothes off. The shudder ran up and down his body again.

His clothes on the floor, he knelt over that perfect body. A clink of metal on metal, annoying-...Two sets of dog tags landed together on the bedside table and Wufei leaned in again, shoving Heero back, his hands gliding roughly over skin. Wufei didn't mind being taken. He'd gotten used to it, sometimes he even enjoyed it, though that knowledge stayed deep within his mind where he didn't have to look at it. But this...the privilege to be moving into Heero's body, feel those muscles shiver and convulse under his touch...It was definitely worth all the battles just to feel himself encased and caressed and held and trusted...

Heero made a move of impatience against the covers and Wufei quickly squeezed out some lube and hurried through the preparations. They mated like tigers; no need for foreplay or for tenderness afterwards. Yuy wanted it efficient - as well as hot and rough, Wufei thought with a throb of lust that seemed to turn his spine into molten metal and burn in his loins. Wufei didn't want any hint of affection to snare him and confuse him either.

Afterwards...

Wufei drove into the body beneath his. Each pulse ripping sweat and pleasure from his skin.

Heero's hands left welts on his shoulder and hip. Slamming them together. Heero could get screwed in ways that made many a tyrant look like a submissive cur.

Afterwards...

Wufei tore away from the teeth and the mouth that were searing like acid burns all over his neck and shoulders. He stared down at blue eyes losing focus, parted lips suddenly delicate...The fingers on his hip were beyond bruising.

They dropped a hand to Heero's erection at the same time, both feeling the end coiling like snakes through Wufei's muscles, gathering in the deep, hard invasions of the body tightening below his. Wufei ripped Heero's hand away. He wanted to feel the hardness of desire beneath his own fingers. He wanted to tear that small loss of control out of his partner's flesh himself. Heero snarled in silence and punished his shoulders. Wufei smiled in fierce triumph as blue eyes widened, breath caught. His heart hammered. His hand twisted and squeezed.

Heero hissed. An unconscious noise. As if trying to subdue the pleasure shaking him, spilling over Wufei's fingers. The shock went through Wufei’s body like concussive impacts and caught him as he pushed forward one-...last-...

"Ah!" He ripped away from the hands clutching him. Welts on his shoulder and down his chest. Tightness and waves of motion around his erection liquefying him into pure bliss.

Pleasure pulsed through him. Counterpoint to ragged breathing, pounding heart. The echoes faded slowly, left him gasping and shaking.

He raised a hand - a rather sticky hand. He grimaced and raised the other hand instead, to wipe away the sweat that was edging over his brow to trickle into his eye. Heero was panting; a tickle of breath stirred the strands of Wufei’s hair that had twisted loose of their tight thong. Wufei's breathing was harsh and irregular too; their chi met and melded between sated bodies. Wufei felt the final pool of tension accumulated in the past two weeks trickle away.

Contentment. He normally shied from it, but this was its moment. Their strict way allowed it, just for a while. This was the moment he'd withdraw from Heero with a pang of regret. He'd let himself sink to his partner's side and, almost lazily, wipe away the traces of a human desire from the hard, unrelenting body, and at this point in time, Heero would let him. For a while.

Afterwards...

Heero lay still, also resting in the unaccustomed nearness he normally refused. They didn't speak - sometimes they did, inconsequential words; the sound of another human voice near their ear while their defenses were down was a rare, strangely precious thing. Today they lay in silence for a few minutes, inches apart, and listened to the slight drizzle of an early summer shower start to tap against the metal roof not far above their heads.

Heero stood and stretched. Wufei could be as rough as he liked - as rough as they both wanted him to be - it didn't seem to matter much to the way Heero moved afterwards. When J had built Wing to be well-nigh indestructible, he must have used the pilot as his template, Wufei reflected with a small, inner smile.

"I'll go in tomorrow at eight," he said abruptly, ending the moment.

"Very well. I'll try to get some information about the Syndicate from the Chilean," Heero answered as he gathered his clothes from the floor. "And I'll get in touch with Barton."

"He's in Corsica, isn't he? Undercover."

"I'll try his drop box then. He'll want any information we can get him."

"Yes." The yawn that followed caught Wufei off guard.

There was something like a mocking purr from Heero. "Did I tire you out?"

"No, it's the thought of dealing with Anthea tomorrow, as I try to explain to her why she needs a box for 'bribes' on her field expenses form."

Score, Chang.

Heero sneered and left. Wufei wriggled to get away from the small wet spot. His bed was quite big enough for him and for the frenzied sex they occasionally indulged in. If he listened carefully, he would soon hear the squeak of Heero's small bunk bed. They used Wufei's double bed to satisfy their carnal urges, but Heero never spent more time there than necessary. They were both too highly strung to sleep together and that was only one of the reasons.

Wufei's eyes fluttered close. He'd get up and shower and read a book in a while, before going back to the grind again tomorrow, but right now he was clutching at the strands of contentment and pleasure rippling lazily through his body.

He couldn't wait to be out in the field again, he suddenly realized. He absently rubbed one of the welts on his hip. A bruise was forming there. He smiled, satisfied. Now it would just be a matter of waiting for the next emergency, the next fire, and he and Heero would be out on the edge again. Thriving on their warrior's peace.


	17. War Wounds, Part I

"The lotus root may be severed, but its fibered threads are still connected"  
\--- Chinese proverb

 

Wufei shook himself. A splatter of water against the curtain sounded like a drum, a counterpoint to the trickle still dribbling from the shower head. He wiped his eyes and reached out blindly for a towel. It landed in his hand before he got as far as the rack.

"Thanks," he grunted. There was a muffled 'Hn' from his partner and the sound of a toothbrush resuming its work.

The towels were decadently soft and fluffy. Much better than the rather coarse ones they had back in their own small bathroom. Wufei rubbed the water clear of his face and found himself looking at an equally fluffy white bathrobe that sent all the alarm bells ringing in his mind.

"Are you sure this room is being paid for by the Minister's lot?" he grumbled.

"Yes," Heero said through toothpaste before grabbing a glass to rinse; a real glass, not the plastic tumbler they had back at the house.

"You'd better be right. Or Anthea will be going after our respective balls with a blunt spoon."

"Hn."

"Do you even know how much a room like this cost at a five-star hotel like this? Especially here, in Berlin central?"

Heero shrugged in complete indifference. Wufei rolled his eyes, slipped on the bathrobe and went to get his gear from the cupboard. He glanced at the clock in passing. 5 AM. They had to be down in thirty minutes to review the last security details.

Wufei put his uniform on the bed, glaring distastefully at the tie. This would be the first time he actually wore the thing. He slipped the bathrobe from his shoulders, shivering a bit in the cool air. The room was old and elegant, and seemed to stare at his nudity with a maiden aunt's disapproval. Wufei's eyes trailed over the walls decorated with woven satiny wallpaper, solid, expensive furniture, two double-beds. The latter at a respectable distance apart, fortunately for the sake of two very light sleepers. The sheets had been thick and soft, the mattress too, a bit too much so. Wufei stretched after slipping on and belting his pants, trying to work out a kink. He slipped his shirt over his shoulders and buttoned it up quickly, leaving the uniform jacket to one side for now.

Heero walked out of the bathroom; he hadn't even bothered with the second robe.

"Hurry up. Sanderson will have commandeered some food from the kitchen for us," Wufei told him. Heero went to get his own uniform in the cupboard, still without a word. Wufei's partner was never a chatterbox, but this was unusual even by his standards. Wufei shrugged mentally and put his carrier case on the bed, flicking it open with a practiced snap. He slipped on the shoulder holster and buckled it over his shirt, toyed with the tie. It wouldn't be very visible under a flak jacket, maybe he could skip it...

Heero grumbled indistinctly and Wufei glanced over. His partner was over by his bed fastening his pants, which, even to Wufei's eyes, looked a bit tight.

"Not worn your uniform in awhile, have you," he commented dryly. Heero grunted.

Wufei let his eyes roam over the familiar body. They had both grown in the past few months, now that they were no longer fettered by the chains of war. These days, they had the chance to rest well, eat well - mainly thanks to Wufei, who believed in vitamins that didn't come in a tube - and exercise well without straining themselves or being continuously injured. Their bodies were catching up for lost time, rushing towards a slightly delayed adulthood. Since the war Heero had grown a couple of inches, and his daily regimen of exercise, in conjunction with the aforementioned food and rest, meant that his muscles were finally having a chance to bulk out a bit. He was never going to be built like a door, in fact to the casual eye he still looked rather slender, but a pro could easily spot the growing muscles running through his arms, his thighs, his abdomen now circled a bit too tightly by his uniform pants. He was due to go up another size in clothing.

Wufei passed hands down his own chest after he tightened his holster, smoothing his shirt and tucking it into his belt. He was growing too, but it looked like he might have inherited his father's build; short, tough and wiry rather than muscular. Well, considering how he'd been able to sneak through a broken air-duct two weeks back to get around Mad Mundson before he blew them all to Hell in little bits, it was probably a good thing. 

He distantly hoped Heero wouldn't grow much taller than him. Though he couldn't really imagine either of them as adults. As usual, the 'future' was the end of this mission and the start of the next.

A rap at the door made him pause as he was about to get his semi-automatic from the case. Heero frowned at him, puzzled, then put his back to the wall out of line of shot of the doorway. The soldier's paranoia was still as healthy as the rest of him.

"Yes?" Heero asked loudly. His fingers gripped the gun he'd kept under the thick hotel pillow. Wufei shook his head derisively, not for the first time; his partner seemed unable to sleep without that frickin' Glock in the bed with him. Pa-ra-noid. Not like Wufei, who kept his Luger on the bedside table like a reasonable human being.

"Breakfast, sir."

Wufei and Heero exchanged puzzled glances. "We didn't order anything."

"Says here, room 1045. Continental deluxe for two." The voice was muffled by the door, but sounded honest.

The partners exchanged another look, then Heero snapped: "It's a mistake. Take it away."

"Oh. Sorry to have bothered you, sir." They heard the wheels of a trolley creaking away.

Heero took two quick steps to his laptop sitting on a table by his bed and flicked the mouse to get rid of the screensaver - still the same dancing scythe Maxwell had installed ages ago. Apparently Maxwell had implanted a virus in Spacenet that sought out Heero's email and IP as soon as he contacted the database the pilots used to keep track of each other, and installed the screensaver on whatever machine Heero was using. Wufei thought it a rather extravagant effort to go through for so little, but it was somehow typical of their strange colleague.

"Yuy, it was just a mistake. Forget about it," he muttered before Heero could break into the hotel's computer system to see where that breakfast had come from.

Heero hesitated, then turned back to the bed to fit on his tie. He had a first-class scowl on his face. Wufei watched him carefully.

"What's wrong?"

He thought Heero would ignore him, but after a pause his partner scrubbed a hand through his messy bangs and grumbled, "I don't like these missions."

Wufei fumbled the charger he'd been checking. Heero didn't often express a like or dislike. Saying something like that about a mission...Wufei felt like drawing the curtains back to see if the sun was rising in the West this morning.

"Why not?"

"They're boring and they make me tense," Heero snapped, tightening his tie with a jerk.

"Yuy..." Wufei fished around, trying to figure this one out. "Not two weeks ago we were in an L2 slum, where even the rats would have mugged us for our shoe-laces, tracking down an insane bomber with four K's of semtex derivative and a death wish. Are you saying that watching a bunch of politicians fuss around is more stressful than that? I'll concede the boring," he added.

"Yes. The problem is, we had license to shoot Mundson, while we have to protect these VIPs."

"I'm glad you've mastered that distinction."

"Don't you start...Politicians seem unable to follow even basic safety procedures. The fools break away to speak to reporters or shake hands with members of the public. They always want low profile security and a full room, and they talk way too much."

"Well, yes, they-"

A knock on the door again, much softer than the first. Wufei and Heero stared at each other, and even Wufei reached for the Luger this time.

"Yes?" Heero was back in his previous position, where a shot through the door wouldn't nail him.

"Heero?"

There were three thunderous seconds of silence and then Wufei tossed the Luger down with a snort while Heero went to wrench the door open, after darting his palm over the spy-hole through force of habit.

"Relena? What the hell are you doing h- where's your escort?!"

"Escort?" The soft voice turned into a squeak and there was a rustle of skirt. Wufei imagined his partner jerking the Minister inside. "I left them by my door. This floor has security."

"Only standard hotel security!" Heero snapped. "They have waiters and maids wandering all over the place!"

"Uh, those are hotel staff." Relena appeared, propelled forward by a firm hand on her elbow, talking to Heero over her shoulder. "I'm sure they're not-" her words ended in a hiccup as she looked around and spotted Wufei.

"Minister." He rose and gave a minimal bow. The stupid woman was a VIP and he had to behave accordingly. When she did nothing more than stare at him with her mouth open, he sat back down and continued dismantling and checking the semi.

"Who-..." Relena cleared her throat and her voice was a lot more sophisticated, though still slightly off-pitch. "Um, Heero? Could you introduce us?"

Heero had dropped his gun on his bed and shrugged on his uniform jacket. "This is Chang Wufei, my partner."

"Oh. Oh right! Yes, I remember Lady Une mentioning him." Relena made it clear from her tone that she had not expected the partner to end up in the room she'd set aside for Heero. Wufei saw her eyes flash over the two beds. The two unmade beds. She visibly relaxed while he found himself tensing. Great start to the day.

"My, you're awfully young to be a Preventer," Relena said, and the Darlian charm was finally recovering from its shock; the smile she gave him was sweet and winning. Of course, what she'd just said wasn't going to win her any points. Out of the corner of his eye Wufei saw Heero scowl briefly as he stuffed his Glock in its back holster.

"We were never actually introduced, but I was the pilot of the Gundam 05, Shenlong," Wufei informed her.

"Oh!" Relena pinked, but then the smile that followed was more genuine. "I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you. I should have, we did see each other on MO2, very briefly. We owe you so much. I am sorry."

She looked at him. Wufei found himself on the edge of fidgeting. She was gazing at him, Chang Wufei, as if he was the savior of the human race instead of a hound of battle and a multiple murderer. Wufei wanted to drop the semi and stand up and well, do something - preferably leave. She wasn't unpleasant - actually now that he looked at her up close instead of through news print he realized she was rather pretty - but the way she was looking at him made him fundamentally uneasy, as if he was passing himself off as something he was not.

The cornflower blue eyes turned towards their primary target. Wufei nearly breathed out in relief, and felt a slight pinch of compassion for the subtle tensing that only he would notice in Heero's shoulders as his partner became the recipient of that intense gaze. He suddenly began to understand why Heero could want to protect Relena with his life, fight a war for her, but not want to spend more than a few hours in her company, however nice and honestly friendly she was trying to be.

"Did you find the hotel room comfortable, Heero? Did you sleep well? I heard you got in late last night."

Heero shrugged. This didn't seem to discourage her. Well, she was used to it. "I got up early this morning hoping to see you. We've not had an occasion to chat for months! Er... how have you been?"

Wufei caught her gaze flicking over the room as if looking for something, and he put it together. No longer caught by the spotlight of her eyes, he felt a tiny surge of his usual cold temper; resenting the moment of discomfort he'd experienced. This woman should know better than to try to distract Yuy! Not only was that impossible, but he was also the head of the close security team that were reinforcing her regular bodyguards on this visit, after the very precise death-threat she'd received. Distracting him was not advisable.

"I apologize, Minister," he said coolly and Relena started a bit as she glanced back at him. His presence had apparently been forgotten. "We sent it back."

"W-what?" Relena pinked a bit again. Heero hadn't caught on yet, he was staring at Wufei, visibly puzzled.

"The breakfast. For two," Wufei said for his partner's benefit, though he continued to address the Minister. "We didn't know it was from you. We sent it back."

"Oh...oh, that's okay." Relena was downright flushed now.

"Relena, did you send that?" Heero snapped. Relena turned back to him but, to her credit, didn't flinch or fall back. Wufei knew grown men who would dive for cover at that tone of voice from Heero. Well, Relena was probably used to that too. "You should know better. We would never eat anything that had been taken up to us unsupervised."

To us? Oh wake up and smell the coffee we sent back, Yuy. It wasn't 'for us', it was for you two. Oh well, he'd figure it out. Eventually. Wufei tuned out the excuses and the harsh explanations on security and such that followed, checking his barrel and putting his semi back together again with a quick and practiced movement. Relena's eyes kept darting towards the assembling weapon. If the rebirth of a gun was making the Peace proponent nervous, Wufei realized he could live with that. Besides, they really needed to get ready.

Heero knew it too. He interrupted Relena mid-sentence by grabbing her elbow again and hauling her to the door. "Chang, I'm walking the Minister back to her suite, be ready in five minutes."

"I'm ready now, Yuy," Wufei drawled. That got him a scowl too, then, with a last distressed squeak, Relena was pulled through the door and Wufei was alone.

 

 

Heero had been right; this was boring, Wufei reflected, yet also stressful.

Wufei had a better grasp of the politicians' thought process than his partner did; he realized that a death-threat was a distant thing, something that would follow them most of their career, whereas a photo opportunity with the charming, photogenic Minister Darlian was a much more immediate concern. It didn't help him be any more patient than Heero when some idiot tried to drag Relena near the window to get a better light for the picture, or had a genteel argument about changing his seat at the last minute because there was a breeze, or some fan broke through the security cordon for an autograph, not to mention the press's shenanigans. He could almost feel the tension radiating from his partner. If Heero had his way, the open debate and conference on the final abolition of world-wide frontiers would be held in a bunker, with the representatives in bullet-proof glass aquariums, and the guests listening to the speeches lying flat on their stomachs with their hands on their heads.

Sanderson and Tomoka nodded to them as they took their place on the other side of the low stage, giving him and Heero a ten-minute break. The partners cast one last look around the large, elegant hotel conference room before slipping into the wings. Waiters were moving among the tables with chilled water and fruit juice, and clearing up the breakfast buffet. A covered piano had been shoved off to one side of the stage. Relena was at the speaker's podium talking about something or other. Wufei had quickly tuned her out for the sake of his own sanity; he might believe in peace now, but as one who regularly shed his blood and shot people to defend it, the asinine generalities were giving him a headache.

He shrugged his flak jacket, trying to ease the rub at his neck, and put the bottle of water from his pack against his forehead briefly. It was hot in the conference room under the spots, if you were wearing a uniform and protective gear. He offered the bottle to Heero who shook his head without glancing at it.

"Let's go to the lounge," Wufei said after taking a drink. "I want to fill this up while we have the chance."

Silence.

"So did she persuade you to go to dinner with her tonight?" Wufei murmured. This was their break after all, and they were alone. A little sparring would relax them. At least it would certainly relax Wufei.

Heero stumbled. "How did you know she asked me to dinner?"

"I'm psychic," Wufei sneered, keeping his voice low as they passed behind the stage.

"I told her no, of course, but she insisted and said she'd ask me again later when I was in a better mood," Heero snapped sotto voce. "I don't know why she keeps doing this. Every time I guarded her previously, before you came back from University and we started getting proper missions, it was always the same thing. I always said no and she-" He bit down on the unusual flow of words as if suddenly annoyed by the whole subject, but Wufei caught a glance out of the corner of Heero's eyes.

Wufei was rather nonplussed. He thought his jab would lead to one of their little put-down matches, not a confession. If he didn't know better, he'd think Heero was asking him for his help and advice in the situation, in his own direct and charming way. Well Wufei had a bit more experience in this domain than Heero had, having to turn down giddy girls at University, but he thought Relena was probably a special case. He wasn't sure she was after Heero for romantic reasons, though that might be in the mix. But he thought there was something more...Security? Comfort? A link back to a time that was simpler, where she didn't have the weight of the world on her shoulders? The attention of somebody who treated her the same as he had during the war, well, minus the death-threats? Who wasn't impressed by her status, job and reputation?

"I don't know what she expects," Heero continued grumbling. "She looks at me like..." He lapsed into silence again. Yeah, I know, Wufei thought somberly, unable to put the feeling into words as well, but knowing exactly what Heero meant.

"I don't know-"

Wufei's bottle thunked against the floor. He had his semi out the next second.

Heero had flattened himself against the wall with his own weapon drawn purely on instinct, but his eyes on Wufei were confused. "What."

"Where's Emmet?" Wufei whispered, edging forward. The Preventer was one of their team, guarding the entrance to the backstage area of the conference room. He was not the kind to leave his post for anything unless relieved.

"K'so. Check." Heero turned and headed back toward the conference room at a silent, deadly run. Wufei poked a cautious head around the corner. Nothing was out place...at first glance. But Wufei had a very good eye for detail. He noticed a picture slightly askew on the wall Emmet had been leaning against when Wufei had last seen him an hour ago, before the conference started. No blood, but small signs of a disturbance. And, as he got nearer, a very slight smell in the air, scorched cloth and burnt hair. A tazer? Someone had gotten close enough to an old hand like Emmet to take him out. Someone whom he would not be immediately suspicious of - hotel staff?!

Wufei had spun on that flash of intuition when a shot rang out. Muffled screams. Doors being slammed. He ghosted back towards the conference room, leaned around the corner to the long hallway leading towards the stage. Heero was crouching at the other end of the hallway, at the room's entrance. Someone shouted, words indistinct to Wufei. Heero glanced back at him, one warning look, then stood and, semi pointing towards the ground, stepped out into the conference room.

Shit! Wufei couldn't see what was happening, but he could imagine. Someone must be threatening the VIPs. As he watched, Heero leaned forward slowly and slid his semi towards an unseen shooter.

Wufei turned, the hotel blueprint flashing through his mind. The mezzanine. It was cordoned off. The small nook near the high ceiling to the left of the stage would give him a good view and a shot. He thrust the semi back into its thigh holster and ripped open his flack jacket and uniform to dig out his Luger, preferring its precision to a lethal spread at this point. It wasn't regulations to carry it concealed, but that had never stopped him. He knew Heero had his Glock squirreled away as well, though he doubted his partner could draw it unless Wufei provided a distraction.

The guard, one of Relena's regulars, who had been on the door to the mezzanine was missing, of course. That left the three Preventers in the conference room itself, and Heero. All other personnel were positioned on the ground floor, as the VIPs had insisted they did not want high profile security. But these were teams who knew what they were doing, they had the area loosely under surveillance. Damn it all, how had the bastards managed to -

Shooter in the mezzanine.

Wufei darted back into the stairwell. The man hadn't turned. He was dressed in a waiter's uniform, with a short riffle pointing at the people below. Wufei leaned back against the wall, took a breath, stuck the Luger in his belt and drew his boot-knife.

His body remembered; every infiltration, alone against hundreds of armed and trigger-happy troops. Tread in silence. Move in shadow. Time your steps to your enemy's breathing. Erase your presence from his mind. Until you can-

One hand over the mouth. The blade stabbed into the base of the skull. His knife hand darted away from the hilt to catch the falling riffle. Wufei let himself fall back loosely, the jerking body toppling onto him to avoid it rattling against the floor. Warmth of blood on his chest. A smell he'd never forget and never get used to. A gurgle from the man's stomach as bowels clenched and then loosened. The body stilled and Wufei took his hand away from the mouth after he felt the last rattle tickle his fingers.

Leaning carefully over the edge of the mezzanine, he took in the view in one glance. Bad. He was opposite the wall where Heero was crouched, hands in the air, blue eyes flickering over the scene looking for an opening. Wufei lifted his head once more until Heero spotted him. Sanderson and Tomoka were on the ground, weapons thrown away. Dupont was lying on the floor near the main door to the conference room, probably downed by that earlier shot, in a small pool of blood from somewhere on her body; status unknown. The civilians were all on the ground, except for a few who'd been grabbed by the hostiles. He’d counted five. A quick glance confirmed it. And, most unfortunately, one of them - one of the waiters - was holding Relena in front of him with a gun to her head.

A flare of absolute anger. Just like OZ with the colonies: threatening the innocent to disarm the strong. In war, the weak didn't care about casualties. Heero had self-destructed to protect the colonies back then- the anger burned bright as Wufei saw his partner made helpless by a cowardly threat, fed by his worry for Heero and the sixty innocent people in the room who might get caught in the crossfire. Then all emotions were quickly suppressed by the warrior within.

Wufei bit his lip as the shooter holding Relena came into his sights. He could nail the guy but...it would be an unacceptable risk to the Minister. Damn it how-... the waiters had been checked. The other hostiles were dressed like civilians. How had they gotten weapons past the metal detectors?! If there were leaks in their own security, then he might not be able to rely on backup.

"You. Come here."

Wufei glanced over the balustrade again, puzzled. He had crept against the side of the mezzanine, so he couldn't be seen by any of the hostiles in the main part of the room. The man on the stage holding Relena was looking the other way. Another man was near Wufei's position, just below the mezzanine, holding a journalist to his chest, a gun to the man's jaw, but he was looking at the stage. It had been Heero they'd said that to.

Heero stood slowly, hands raised. Blue eyes flitted towards the gun he'd tossed away, towards the man holding Relena, towards the other enemies in the room. Wufei assessed the situation as Heero was doing. The conference table was thick oak, if Yuy could get Relena away, they could- no! Shit! Wufei's eyes widened in alarm as he got a better look at the gun the man was holding to Relena's head. A Desert Eagle, latest in line. That could put a bullet through just about anything in the conference room. Including, probably, their flak jackets.

"Come. Here." Wufei could see the man's face as it turned to follow Heero's movements. His partner had gotten nearer, but angled towards the front of the stage so that he was between Relena and some of the other weapons. The man holding Relena...his face was set and it didn't look like the face of a man who was intending to get out alive. Wufei had seen it before. He knew it well. He had a nasty feeling that Relena and the other VIPs were dead. Although if he was stupid enough to let a killer like Heero moving around the room instead of getting down on the floor there might still be a chance.

"Turn around." Heero stopped, a meter away from the man, way closer than Wufei would ever have let someone like Heero. His partner turned slowly, eyes flickering to the mezzanine as soon as he was facing in that direction, without alerting the others to Wufei's position. Wufei tensed, but there wasn't much he could do yet.

"Where's the other one! Has anybody seen him?" The man almost right beneath Wufei muttered, he sounded like he was talking into a comm. The journalist he was holding swallowed audibly.

"On your knees," the man holding Relena said. Heero stood still for a second then sank to his knees, raising his hands to lace his fingers at the back of his head. The man shifted Relena around a bit, to his left, and she was now completely between him and Wufei. She was pale but her face was calm and her eyes dry, and she twisted in his hold to face front with him. The man pressed his gun against her head warningly and her throat bent back as the grip around it tightened. Wufei's lips curled back in a silent snarl at the horrible angle for a head-shot, he'd never get the bastard like this without clipping Relena, at the very least.

"Did any of you see the other?! Paul? This is André! Come in!" the man below hissed.

"No," the man holding Relena said softly to Heero. "Get your hands away from your head. Put them - cross them at the wrist behind your back."

What-

No!

Wufei's finger tightened on the trigger, he had the man's shoulder in his sight, but he couldn't - the Eagle was at Relena's head - she was in the way of a fatal shot - Heero-

Heero's eyes flashed towards him as he put his hands behind his back. A warning. A message.

Finish the mission.

Relena made some noise of protest and moved against the loosening hold, eyes wide.

The killer smiled like a hanged man. And in one quick movement took his gun from Relena's head and put it against Heero's. Finger tightening on the trigger.

Relena twisted out of the loose hold and dropped her full weight onto the man's right arm.

The gun fired twice and Heero was hurled forward, crashing into the wooden floor.

Relena clear. The thought came after Wufei had already squeezed the trigger.

She screamed as the man's dead weight crashed into her. Head shot, one hostile down. Wufei was already firing at the man below him. Shoulder shot, head shot. A bullet slammed in the wall by his head. Mokota had grabbed the first man's Eagle and was covering Relena with his body; the crack of his bullets made the chandelier ching. Wufei hurled himself over the handrail and landed like a cat on the ground below. He rolled and came up firing, and threw himself behind a pillar. A bullet smacked into it, but then there were shouts at the door and the sound of running feet, and then nothing but sobs and screams for help.

Wufei broke cover and checked the room. No more hostiles. He spun towards Anderson and Mokota before heading towards the fire exit. "Get them moving." he barked over his shoulder. Mokota hauled a sobbing Relena to her feet, dragged her screaming away from the body that Wufei couldn't - finish the mission. Get the VIPs out. Mokota had Relena, Sanderson took the President of the Council and the Speaker and hustled them forward. Others followed. Wufei checked the fire escape as they gathered behind him. The ground below was clear; good thing they were only on the second floor. And local police officers were running up the alley, guns at a ready, heading for the fire escape to block off the shooters' possible escape route.

"Move, now," Wufei hissed, once he made sure the lieutenant in charge of the four-man police brigade had recognized his uniform. Sanderson and Mokota covered the VIPs with their bodies, eyes on the skylines, the ground, any hint of cover. Wufei followed them closely. A red-headed cop with a rugbyman build picked Relena up like a child as she staggered, and huddled over her as he started running towards the armored car at the end. The lieutenant turned towards Wufei to ask a question-

The alarm in the man's eyes saved his life. Wufei was on the ground before the shot echoed. The bullet spat up brick and dust as it hit the wall where his head had been. He twisted and brought his gun up. The officer had already fired, sending the shooter diving for cover behind a garbage container at the corner of two alleys some distance away. Wufei uncurled himself in one savage spring.

"Hey wait-" the officer shouted at his back. He ignored it. His gun was firing even as he threw himself behind an open fire door. A bullet rang against the thick metal, a wild shot.

"Come on! Come on!" A shout from further down the alley and the growl of a motorcycle. Wufei turned to the officer and mouthed 'cycle' at the man. The officer grabbed his comm, started ordering forces to surround the building if they weren't already. Wufei risked his head out and pulled back as a shot echoed through the alley.

"Come on!" The voice sounded desperate. British accent, he noted absently.

"Goddamn- we're still at war, motherfucker!" the shooter behind the container shouted and took off. Wufei risked a shot, but the man on the motorcycle had a shotgun pointed in his direction and he pulled back with a curse. The shooter had been one of the six in the conference room. The motorcyclist was a seventh. Not a huge force, unless there were others.

War? What the fuck did that mean?

Wufei stood as the whine of the cycle faded. Hopefully a barricade would be up by now. He brushed past the officer trying to ask him questions in a thick, Germanic accent. The armored car with Relena and the VIPs was already gone, Sanderson and Mokota with it.

The fire escape stairs clanged under Wufei's feet. A police officer asked him for his badge at the door and Wufei tore it off and nearly punched the man in the stomach with it as he burst back into the conference room.

The room was empty of civilians, though only a few minutes had elapsed; it was like a magician's trick. There were half a dozen armed men, Preventers, Relena's people and a few cops in their place. One was putting pressure on Dupont's shoulder, she was pale but conscious. Two others had their gun on a man on the floor, one of the shooters. He wasn't moving. At a glance, none of the civilians had been injured, or else they'd been mobile.

War...?

He made his way around overturned chairs, crushed glasses, dropped handbags and cameras, like a ghost of terrors past, heading for the stage and the two Berlin policemen leaning over-

...Alive?

He knelt next to Heero. Actually his knees had wobbled and near given out on him as he'd approached and heard the bubbling whisper of breath. Blood, frothy pink, on the lips but- Gods bless the creators of their flak jackets. He'd been told, without really paying attention, that they were wearing a new prototype coat. He'd only cared that it was tougher and lighter than the previous kind. He'd never thought to ask if it could resist two rounds from an Eagle at point blank range. Damn, that could have dented light armor plating.

"Yuy? Relena's safe. The VIPs made it out."

One of the cops said something. Wufei knew that the bullet's impact must have felt like a truck hitting Heero midriff. No wonder he was out cold. Still...he'd had to say it. Maybe it was for his own benefit. Relena was safe. Mission over. Now he had to get his injured partner to a safe-house.

Someone grabbed Wufei by the shoulder and jerked.

One second later, the paramedic was flat on the ground with the Luger in his face. Behind Wufei the cops both drew their weapons and yelled something. He realized they'd been talking to him for a while now; he hadn't really been paying attention.

"Sorry." He lifted the gun away from the paramedic, who just stared at him. The man's colleague glared at Wufei and knelt next to Heero, displacing one of the cops.

"Two bullets in the back," Wufei heard his own voice say, it sounded cold and exact. "Flak jacket took it, but I think it broke his -"

"Karl, get up! We have a lung wound here! And- go get a backboard!"

Wufei felt his battle-edge start to dissipate. Heero's face was pale. The breath dragged though his throat as if each one would be the last, but Wufei knew it sounded probably worse than it was. One bullet had impacted the back of the flack jacket, snapping some of Heero's ribs and sending bone plunging into his lung by the sound of it. The other one had hit him right over the spine. Wufei started to think like a Preventer again. A worried Preventer.

"Here." The paramedics were moving with quick efficiency. "Got it. Okay. Roll him."

"Be careful!" Wufei snarled, reacting to the sight of an IV. "He's insensitive to a lot of medication. Here." He reached past the medic and jerked Heero's dogtags from around his neck. "Scan this one. It'll tell you what you can use."

The medic took his PDA from his belt and used its inbuilt scanner on the tag. His eyebrows shot up at the result. "Gottverdamnt! We don't have any of this with us!"

"Then get him to a hospital that does," Wufei said through clenched teeth.

"Okay. Anamaria? What's our priority?" The man was talking into his comm. "We got a ride for him now. Creuz is taking the casualties. Let's go."

"I'm coming with you," Wufei snapped.

The paramedic seemed about to argue on principle, took one look at Wufei's face and changed his mind. "Ya ya, let's go."

 

 

"Are you the next of kin?"

"Well-"

"If not, tell the nurse where I can reach his family and please leave. You're not supposed to be here, this is pre-ops. Go to the emergency room for treatment."

"I- he doesn't have any family and I don't need treatment," Wufei snapped, resisting the urge to grab the surgeon by the collar and slam him against the wall a few times. "Look, we need to talk, I-"

"I need to get consent, if I can," the surgeon corrected him firmly. He was a man in his forties, wiry thin and stooped, with thinning light brown hair and a no-nonsense look of authority about him that made Wufei wonder if he hadn't been a military doctor at one point. The badge on his scrubs indicated his name was 'Helzman'. "Then I need you to leave. We have to get him prepped."

"You need me here for that, doctor," Wufei said. He was trying to keep his voice calm, but he could feel the seconds dripping through his fingers like blood. Heero had been shot over thirty minutes ago. He'd stabilized in the ambulance all by himself, much to the paramedics' amazement. Wufei had never felt more grateful for J's tinkering before. His partner had been whisked through the emergency room and up to pre-ops at record speed as a result. Wufei had managed to follow him up till now, but Helzman would be a definite obstacle. Wufei glanced at Heero's still form, on his side as nurses checked the restraint on his back keeping his spine and ribs from moving too much while they cut away the rest of his uniform.

Helzman looked up from the clipboard he'd been perusing as if amazed Wufei was still there. "What? Need you here?"

"Look, I'm a Preventer-"

"You are?" Helzman stared at Wufei, who suddenly remembered he had blood all over the chest of his flak jacket. No wonder Helzman had assumed he was another patient.

"Yes! I- I don't have my badge, I left it on the scene but- you!" One of the nurses around Heero started. "Look in the back pocket of his pants, you'll find his wallet. There will be a card with his ID and emergency contact details. It will have the number of Preventer HQ in Brussels. You can call our superior, Lady Une. She can confirm this."

"That's not the point, sir," Helzman snapped, letting the pages of the chart he was holding riffle back with a whisper. "You may be his colleague, but you should still wait in the hallway. Only family members are allowed in pre-ops, and then only until we start prep. We-"

"Look, I really need to talk to you-"

"No."

"Please," Wufei ground out. "We have to talk about what medical procedures you are going to use. He's-"

"I have all the details about his allergies to certain medication. As for medical details, you have no authority for that. Please remove yourself now, sir."

"Allergies are not the problem!"

"Rupert, Sicherheit anrufen." Helzman said over Wufei's shoulder to one of the nurses, who moved towards the interphone.

"No! I-" Wufei grabbed the surgeon by his scrubs and dragged him protesting out of earshot of the rest of the surgical team.

"This is not helping your friend! He needs immediate attention-" Helzman hissed, trying to break Wufei's hold.

"He's a Gundam pilot."

"-we need to operate while he's...what?"

"That's why he's resistant to a lot of drugs. And that's why you need me here. Now get Rupert to call off the hounds because my mood is bad enough as it is," Wufei growled.

Helzman was quick. His eyebrows shot up as he twisted to stare at Heero - who, still unconscious, actually looked all of sixteen for once, despite the blood and the pallor on his face. Then the surgeon's eyes twitched and riveted themselves on Wufei's face.

"That's right, so am I," Wufei added. "Now, you need to get Yuy sedated before-"

"I heard- I heard what those colonists did to you," Helzman stuttered, eyes wide. Wufei took a second to relate this to his own comment about Heero's drug resistance.

"Tell you what, doctor, once you've finished operating on my partner here, I'll sit down with you and have a long debate about ethics and the necessities of war. I could do with an intelligent conversation from someone who doesn't grunt or glare when I'm winning the argument. But right now -"

"Are you Wu F-Fei Chang?"

Helzman and Wufei turned towards the small nurse who'd been going through Heero's wallet. She was holding a card and looking at Wufei doubtfully.

"Yes I am, what-"

"Herr Doktor, he is next of kin," the nurse said, handing Heero's Preventer ID and contact details to Helzman.

"I am?" Of course, there was a Next Of Kin box on the Preventer emergency card. Wufei hadn't bothered to fill it in; since he was a minor, he expected his guardian, Uncle Wai, would take care of- Wufei recovered from his surprise and spun on Helzman. "There! That means I'm allowed to be here, as well as make medical decisions in his name, right?"

"You can stay until we start prepping him," Helzman corrected bitingly, reading the card with a dubious frown on his face. "And you're definitely not allowed to take his medical decisions. If he has no family, the hospital will take responsibility. Karina, go back and get Mr Yuy ready, I want him in there in ten minutes."

"If you're going to operate on Yuy, you're going to need me while you sedate him, and I want to scrub in and be in the theater so that -"

"What?!" He had Helzman's full attention again.

"Look, I happen to know how my partner - my friend - would want a spinal injury treated. I want to be on hand so I can tell you -"

"Absolutely out of the question!" The surgeon turned a fetching shade of purple.

"I know it's not procedure but-"

"You're damn right about that! I don't care if you were a Gun-mf!"

Wufei's hand muffled the end of the shout. Stay calm. Don't draw your gun or they will really have a reason to throw you out. If they do that...no. They'd call Une, or their physician back in Brussels. None of them would be able to make the kind of decision Heero would want regarding an injury that could potentially put him in a wheelchair. This was Wufei's responsibility.

"Call off security," Wufei said in a voice that was a lot calmer than he felt. He picked up the clipboard Helzman had dropped and grabbed one of the legal forms, ripping it from the clip and turning it over to get a blank sheet. He didn't look at the surgeon. Helzman hesitated. He could feel the man's eyes on his face but he didn't bother to look as he picked a pen out of the surgeon's breast-pocket. Helzman started, then slowly waved the two security guards hovering at Wufei's shoulder away.

Wufei scribbled quickly 'I, Heero Yuy, give authority to Chang Wufei to make all medical decisions on my behalf, signed, Chang Wufei, Heero Yuy'. He signed it with a scratch that made the pen bleed.

"Here." He stuck the mutilated form in front of Helzman's nose. "If I get him to sign this too, will that give me the right to call the shots on his treatment?"

"Well- but he's out cold!"

"We'll just see about that." Wufei grabbed a protesting Helzman by the front of his scrubs and dragged him to the gurney, stepping over cables and tubes. The three nurses were spreading betadine over Heero's chest and back, and inserting an IV in his ankle. They stepped back, uncertain. Wufei shoved Helzman against the wall, fairly gently, stuck the clipboard under one arm, then grabbed Heero's wrists.

"Yuy? Can you hear me?"

"I don't know what you expect," Helzman snapped. "He's got whiplash concussion from being hurled to the floor by point-blank shots-"

"Yuy?" Wufei gripped the wrists with one hand and tapped Heero's cheek with another. "Come on, snap out of it."

"- lung damage which we've barely patched up in the ER-"

"Yuy?"

"- possible spine trauma, several broken ribs-"

Wufei grabbed Heero's head by the hair and jerked it back. "Status, pilot!"

Good thing he was gripping Heero's wrists.

The clipboard went flying and Wufei almost followed as Heero jerked and wrenched one hand free. Wufei caught it as it tried to punch him blind. Heero rasped and wrenched it away again - goddamn it the son of a bitch was strong! The free hand flew up to his mouth.

"No- Yuy! Don't! You're-"

Heero coughed and gagged, but ripped the tube from his throat, and then made a spirited effort to roll off the gurney. It took Wufei a few heart-wrenching moments to immobilize his weakened partner without adding to his injuries. "Heero! It's me! Wufei! Calm down- safe! You're safe!"

Heero froze and then relaxed under his hands. Wufei blew a strand of loosened hair from his eyes and made sure Heero had something like recognition in his own before letting go.

"S...status..." Heero mumbled, breathing harsh and tortured.

"Safe. Relena's safe, mission's over, you're injured," Wufei shot out, leaning down to pick up the clipboard. "You took two rounds up close. Jacket stopped them. Damage to ribs, punctured lung - " blood was bubbling down Heero's chin again, damn it " - and back injury."

"...where..."

"Hospital. About to be operated on to patch the lung, get the bone shards out. You have a cracked vertebra and swelling in the spine, but they don't know how bad. Once they fix the lung they'll look into that, but -" Wufei stuffed the clipboard in Heero's lightly curled fist and fished around for the pen he'd stuck in his pocket. "Sign this. It gives me authority over your medical decisions. So I can tell them to take care of the spinal injury while you're still on the table." And tell them to take the risks needed to get it fixed. He knew enough about field medicine to know that a cautious surgeon would not want to strain a patient with an injury to a vital organ by spending hours working on a non-fatal back injury, preferring to leave the swelling to the care of anti-inflammatories and rest. But it was a precaution Heero didn't need, and a risk to his future mobility that neither partner would consider.

Heero's eyes tried to focus on him, then the clipboard. Wufei wondered how bad the concussion was. Then Heero painfully moved clipboard and pen together, Wufei steadying his hand, and Heero awkwardly scribbled something like his name across half the page.

"...can't...feel f-...fingers..." his words and breathing were torn and ragged, flecks of blood on the white of the paper.

"You got pretty beat up. But you can move them," Wufei said, then wished he hadn't. Heero didn't need this sugarcoated. "Doctor, is this enough?"

"We-we need to get him intubated again, his sats are dropping," Helzman said after picking his jaw up off the floor. He looked like he was trying hard to regroup behind an air of professionalism.

"Yeah, sorry about that, I should have seen that one coming," Wufei muttered. "But it if didn't happen now, it would have happened in a few minutes while you were prepping him and you'd have been in worse trouble. Now will you let me in the operating theater?"

"Well I-"

"...here..." Heero whispered. Wufei followed his gaze, reached out a long arm and dragged Helzman forward by the front of his already stretched and rumpled scrubs.

"Hey- let me go! Mr Yuy, I don't think you quite understand how serious your- urk!"

Wufei had released the scrubs and Helzman had leaned towards his patient only to find himself hauled nose to nose with the latter by a very similar grip.

"Do. What. He. Says," Heero said, voice wheezy and choked with blood but still deadly. Helzman nodded like a puppet with only one string until Wufei pulled him back.

"Okay, doctor, tube him-"

"I can't! He's conscious!"

"I told you he- he's not norm- he can control his cough and gag reflexes," Wufei ground out. "Get your people in here and let's get this done already! We've wasted enough time as it is! You've got the list of drugs you can use. I'll scrub and join you, hold him down while you anesthetize him. Yes I need to!" he cut Helzman's protests. "The last time he was put under, it was in an interrogation room. I'd have you cuff him to the table, but we don't have time to autoclave the restraints. I'm the next best thing if you don't want him killing your anesthesiologist while he's semi-conscious. Now can we do this?!"

Helzman looked suddenly older as he sighed. "Rupert, see if team A is ready. Make sure we get Iagerbrand for anesthesia. Karina, get me a tube kit."

"Are you sure?" Karina was staring at Wufei. So were the security guards still standing near the door.

"Yes. I think we're going to have to fly this one without radar or operating manual," Helzman muttered.

"MS corp medic? Alliance? OZ?" Wufei glanced up from where he'd grabbed Heero's wrists as he recognized the mobile suit lingo.

"Just a doctor, young man, just a doctor. Don't worry. I'll do my best. It'll be up to your friend to do the rest. You'd better be right about how tough he is."

"Doctor, I haven't told you the half of it yet."


	18. War Wounds, Part II

"To club a tiger, it takes blood brothers"  
\--- Taiwanese proverb

 

Wufei sat in the chair he'd bummed from the nurses' station, the beep of monitors punctuating his thoughts. In theory he wasn't allowed in post-ops, but after his help in the operating theater, he thought Helzman had warned the rest of the staff that both young men were something of a special case, and that, for the health of everyone concerned, Wufei should be allowed to do as he wished. As a result, he and Heero were as far away from the other patients as could be, stuck in a corner of the big recovery room, with a curtain half-drawn and the nurses with strict orders to leave them alone until summoned.

He knew the instant Heero came to, though his partner did not move and the monitors didn't get very excited about the fact. Wufei stood up and approached the bed with the caution required.

"Yuy? It's me, Chang. You're safe."

Heero was still for a few seconds, then he opened his eyes.

"Don't get agitated." The monitors beeped slowly and reprovingly at Wufei for making such a rash assumption about Heero's emotional state. Right. "You just got out of the operating theater - and you're wide awake a whole hour before they thought you would be, naturally. There wasn't-"

Heero had been staring at the ceiling, but suddenly he twisted sideways, away from Wufei.

"Yuy!"

Heero reached with practiced hand towards the monitor, unclipped a few wires, the ones connecting its alarm to the nurses' station, then -

"Goddamn it Yuy don't-"

Wufei tried to interfere, but he couldn't grab his injured partner and he couldn't quite reach the busy hands. The monitor recording air pressure and oxygenation data from the tube in Heero's throat gave an odd chuckle and then switched off.

"Yuy! You need that to-"

Heero had already pulled the tube out of his throat with a wrenching cough.

"Damn it! You-...fool! You'll rip your vocal cords out! You need that to breathe-"

Heero coughed and rasped, but the hand gesture was imperious as it flicked towards the respirator hooked to the oxygen outlet in the wall. Wufei gave him a glare that bounced right off hard blue eyes.

"Very well, sir!" Wufei snarled, jerking the mask from the wall and slipping it over his partner's head after checking the flow. "Anything else I can do for you? Sponge bath, maybe?"

Heero adjusted the strap on the mask, coughed some more. His mouth was gummy with dried blood. The look he gave Wufei was more than eloquent though. Try it and I'll break every bone in your wrist, and maybe a few in your arm too.

"Oh, you're going to be a joy to nurse back to health. I wish much happiness and fortune to our staff back in the Brussels clinic," Wufei growled. But he couldn't help a flicker of relief.

"When," Heero rasped, voice muffled by the mask.

"When? You'll be evacuated back to HQ as soon as you're stable."

"Stable now."

"Yes, I know, but the staff here aren't used to dealing with stubborn, indestructible hard-asses like you and will require a little more convincing. I expect they'll be glad to get rid of you sometime tomorrow, or possibly the next day."

"You said...Relena-"

"Safe and back in Sanq by now. Sam said she's been calling everyone from Une to the President of ESUN to be allowed to fly back here and sit around and hold your hand, but-"

"Sam?"

"In charge of the investigation. Yuy, you really shouldn't be talking this much. They patched up your lung, but you had quite a lot of damage -"

"Can move arms and legs but -" cough " - mobility compromised."

Wufei sighed. "Relax. And don't worry. There's still some swelling around your spinal cord, but they put in a shunt to reduce fluid buildup. No permanent damage, they think. And I know you're off the chart when it comes to healing anyway."

"Hostiles?"

"You know, if you don't shut up and rest, I'll just leave."

Heero gave him a look. No you won't. Wufei ground his teeth.

"One got away with the help of an accomplice. Three dead, one critical, one caught trying to get out of the hotel and in custody. We have some IDs. Two were local to Berlin, one of whom was a bona fide waiter at the Maxims." The one Wufei had killed in the mezzanine. "The other was a fake; he was the one holding Relena. Ex-OZ apparently. We think they were helped by others on the hotel staff, otherwise somebody would surely have noticed an addition to the roster. Plus someone put a loop on the cameras, and there was a false alarm that distracted some of the teams downstairs. Sam is heading interrogations. We're assuming the 'waiters' smuggled in weapons before the conference started. We're still not sure-"

Come. Here.

Where's the other one?!

We're still at war, motherfucker!

"We're still not sure what they wanted. They had exits planned and getaway vehicles, but...some of them weren't really expecting to get out of there alive."

Heero stared at him, but didn't ask any further questions. His breathing was still harsh, and lines of pain were starting to draw themselves around his eyes and mouth.

"Want...evac...now..."

"This place is okay. I'll keep watch. They're letting me call the shots now, after you nearly knocked their anesthesiologist on her ass while supposedly sedated." Heero's eyes were glazed but still twitching left and right. "I should get the doctor in here to check you, and keep him from flipping out when he realizes you've extubated yourself. I'll try to keep the nursing staff around you to a minimum."

Heero tried to speak but it came out in a rasp and he licked his lips. "They...make..." His voice faded to nothing but Wufei read the words. 'make...you...leave...'

"I'm staying right here."

Heero's lips moved again. '...you...'

"Don't worry about it. Just get some rest. I'll go get the doctor."

Wufei watched him as Heero's eyes closed and his body relaxed. Passed out again. He stayed by the bed, staring at the blood gumming Heero's lips beneath the mask. Then he looked around. Part of him was looking for Helzman or a nurse. The rest was just...looking. At the three other patients in the big recovery room; at the nurses quietly moving among them. At family members on the other side of the glass window, with only thoughts of their loved ones pulling through on their minds. At people moving around the hospital, trying to heal and get on with their lives.

In his mind's eye, he could see someone pulling a gun out and bringing all of this crashing down around their ears with one wayward shot.

'We're still at war'...screams...blood and overturned tables...the bend of Relena's neck, the gun against her temple...can't shoot without hitting her...the mission...helpless...still at war...

Wufei reached for the wall-phone nearby without really looking, punched a number.

"Operator? I need to be patched through to Preventer HQ here in Berlin. Chang Wufei, I'm in post-ops. That's right. Hello? This is Agent Chang, 342PID, Brussels. Can you patch this line through to a number I give you? It's a colony number. Yes, I'll hold, but hurry please."

 

 

Night was falling. Heero was in a private room, his vital statistics having remained so disgustingly stable the staff really had no excuse to keep him in ICU. Wufei was looking out the room's window at the lights coming on in the small green area surrounding the hospital. His arms were crossed on his chest and his fingers were tapping his biceps in a slow beat.

A sound from the bed made him turn. Heero stirred, then froze as pain woke up with him.

"I'm here," Wufei said as blue eyes, now more focused, flashed around the room.

"Hn." Heero coughed and frowned, shifting his oxygen mask.

"Want a drink? Nurses said you could have one when you came to."

He handed Heero a cup with a straw attachment when his partner nodded. Heero took a small sip and swished it around his mouth before swallowing with a grimace. He shook his head at the tube Wufei held up again; that small lag in his breathing had left him panting. Wufei put down the cup and picked up the papers clipped to a chart he'd set on the bedside table.

"Here. Sign this. Right of attorney for medical decisions." Wufei slipped the papers and a pen in Heero's hands, noting the grip was firm and steady.

Heero tried to focus on the page in the dim light shining on his monitors.

"...Didn't we already do this?" he rasped, "I thought I signed my release to you before-"

"You did. This is mine." Wufei leaned over and switched on the reading lamp.

" ...Oh."

Heero looked at the paper blankly. Wufei thought he knew how his partner felt; he'd been staring at the cream-colored hospital wall near Heero's bed with much the same dazed expression all afternoon.

"I never thought we'd need..." Heero's voice was a faint whisper.

"What, you thought I'd shoot you to keep you from falling into enemy hands?" Wufei asked, his voice more biting than he intended. "Despite what some may think...the war is over. We might actually make it to our majority. It came as a shock to me too," Wufei added in a mutter. It had. The biggest shock, the reason he was being sarcastic and cold right now, was the thought, every time he had looked at Heero's unconscious face today, that he might actually live to see the ripe old age of, say, thirty...alone. Though Une rather expected them to come back from their missions alive, their jobs were still dangerous.

The thought of being alone had never frightened him before; they had expected to die during the war, and the first to leave would not have had long to wait at the gates of Hell for the others to show up. Death had been such a constant, such a certitude; almost reassuring. The Peace hadn't changed that; Death clung to their every thought like scar tissue. It was why they could fill in a Next of Kin box but not think of a medical release...Wufei chased the thought from his mind bitterly. They'd been abruptly forced to move past that this morning, with a bullet that had missed propelling them into a future they might actually live to see. Oh, he knew that Death still dogged them. He'd filled in his own Next Of Kin card earlier that day, listening to its recipient's ragged breathing and the beep of monitors. But Death had spared them till now, amazingly enough. They shouldn't be counting on it. Especially if it could be avoided thanks to some stupid paperwork or other.

We're still at war...

No, we're not. It's time to stop thinking like we were. It's time to start looking out for little details like this.

Wufei didn't fear his death, but he didn't like the idea of living while losing his rival/partner, losing the edge that made life still worth living. Losing one of the few people who could understand that. From the look in Heero's eyes, in that one unguarded moment, he wasn't relishing the thought either. Though they were both uneasy with the concept of being each other's only family, the alternative was ugly enough to accept it without further posturing. This was also a necessary arrangement.

"We're idiots," Wufei said, breaking the moment as Heero handed him the signed paper. "We should have thought of this before. Here, sign this one too, it's a cleaned up version of the one you signed this morning. Without the illegible scrawl and the bloodstains. I'll have these notarized and put into the Spacenet database and Preventer files, we'll be covered in both Earth and Space from now on." He scribbled his own signature on the forms and put them away carefully.

Heero nodded as he sank back into the cushion. He was frowning, his eyes on the ceiling. Then they twitched towards Wufei's.

"Chang...what happened? How did he miss me? You couldn't shoot him with Relena in the way. The hostages-"

"There was interference," Wufei said as smoothly as possible. "It gave me the opportunity for a-"

Blue eyes narrowed. "What. Happened."

Wufei winced. So much for evasion. "You're recovering from severe trauma, you should-" Heero's glare had been unaffected by the lung injury. Wufei was immune by now, but he knew Heero would not let it rest. "...Relena managed to throw off his aim."

"Throw...his aim?"

Wufei rolled his eyes. "She dropped her weight on his weapon arm."

The deep indrawn breath whistled through Heero's lips and mask. "She... _what?!_ "

"Yuy-"

"What-...suicidal-...foolish-"

"Breathe, Yuy. Calm down, it's over. It was instinct."

"I'll give her-...instinct!"

"She's back in Sanq-"

"Next time-...I see-"

"She saved your life. I don't know much about women, but I think you owe her dinner rather than a verbal thrashing."

Heero sagged back against the cushion, pale and visibly exhausted. "My life-...Mission-...She-...could-...have gotten..."

"I know. But she didn't. And it gave me the opportunity for a head-shot. We got her and all the other VIPs out safely." Mission accomplished.

"Hn. When can you get me...out of here?"

"Tomorrow afternoon, or the day after tomorrow."

"Why not now? Stable."

"The hospital won't release you. Anyway, Yuy...there's something-"

"Excuse me?"

Wufei turned towards the door. A doctor he didn't know was leaning in.

"You shouldn't be in here. It's past visiting hours."

"Doctor Mund gave me permission."

"But we're going to night shift." The doctor, Orwill according to his tag, came in and closed the door. "You've been here since this morning. And you're covered in blood as well! It's hardly hygienic for the patient."

Wufei frowned at his stiffened uniform. He'd discarded the flak jacket, but some of the blood had leaked through. "A friend was going to bring me a spare, but he forgot, he's been busy...Can I shower and change into scrubs?"

"No!" the doctor snapped. "You should go home and rest, anyway. Were you planning on staying here all night?"

"Yes, actually," Wufei said coolly.

"Out of the question, especially in that state. The patient needs to sleep." Orwill crossed his arms on his chest. "I must insist you leave. Herr General Direktor Mund did not give you permission to be here on a permanent basis."

Wufei hesitated. He'd rather thought the hospital's director had, but since the man had probably gone home by now, he couldn't confirm it. Wufei looked at the doctor carefully. The man stared back, hostile and resolute. Wufei glanced down at Heero, catching a vulnerable flicker in his expression before the mask settled once more. The body beneath the sheet was tense. Wufei would have liked a bit more time to talk things over with him, reassure him.

"Very well," Wufei said slowly. "Give me a minute."

He waited, but Orwill didn't look ready to leave. Wufei turned back towards the bed, angled his body and leaned towards Heero slightly. "I have to go, Yuy. There's something I have to do anyway."

Heero nodded. His body language was uneasy, even though it was almost trembling from the remnants of shock, anesthesia and exhaustion. He looked tired but not at all ready to let go and rest in such an unsecured location, and Wufei knew he'd be the same if the positions were reversed. The war was over, but old habits died even harder than Gundam pilots.

"I'll come back tomorrow morning," Wufei said, leaning and practically sitting on the bed. "The staff here are quite efficient and there is a security system and guards." He drew his Luger from its shoulder holster beneath his uniform and slipped it into Heero's hand, the movement masked from the doctor by his body. Blue eyes widened slightly. "Try to get some sleep." Wufei leaned forward as if to pat Heero's shoulder, and helped his partner slip the gun under the pillow, making sure Heero could reach up that far despite the injury to his ribs.

'Security on. Don't shoot nurse,' he mouthed. Heero smirked.

"I'll sleep okay, Chang," Heero replied, shifting his head a bit so it rested partly against hard metal.

"Sure. See you soon."

 

 

At ten PM, Doctor Orwill entered the room again. He picked up Heero's chart, flipped through it quickly with his eyes on the monitors beeping slowly, indicating that Heero was deeply asleep. Orwill stood still for a minute, then fumbled the chart back into its holder at the foot of the bed, went to poke his head out the door and nodded.

A man dressed as an intern came in. His brown hair was short and ragged, as if recently cropped but now growing out. His face was hard, thin jaw prominent with clamped teeth, making him look older than his late twenties. 

"Keep an eye out," he grunted. Orwill hesitated, then cracked the door open an inch to see out in the empty hallway beyond.

The man walked slowly towards the bed, eyes narrowing at the young man's face on the pillow, pale in the darkness of the room. The dim night-light over the monitors added shadows to the wounded features under the oxygen mask. The man drew a magnum with a silencer fitted on the end from beneath his hospital coat.

"How do I stop the monitors from going off?" He didn't have to say why they would be going off.

Orwill swallowed, still looking out into the hallway. "I'm not sure. If I switch them off it will show up on the system."

"Hm. Too bad. Get ready to run back to the lounge and look innocent, Edwin. I'll find my own way out." He flicked the security off the gun, stopped near the head of the bed, and brought it to bear slowly, as if savoring the moment. He twisted at the sound behind him, a thump and a muffled choking noise from Orwill.

"Ed? Wass-"

The muzzle of Wufei's borrowed HK 4 touched him just at the edge between the cheekbone and the eye. "Gun. Down."

The man froze, staring at Wufei and a close-up of the gun in disbelief. Behind Wufei, Orwill choked again, trying to breathe through the punch to his solar plexus.

"How did you-"

"Gun."

The man's lips curled back in a snarl. He stood still, as if daring Wufei to shoot - then his eyes widened and he flinched as he felt the barrel of his silencer butted aside. He spun to see the Luger shoving his gun away. Then it was pointing straight at his head.

"I got it, Yuy," Wufei muttered, afraid his partner's fingers would spasm on the trigger. Heero's hand was shaking ever so slightly, though not enough to make the shot any less deadly. Wufei leaned forward and ripped the magnum from the would-be assassin. The man finally moved, tried to wrench away from Wufei's hold, but he wasn't very good at hand to hand; he found himself cuffed, hands behind his back, in fairly short order. Wufei threw him face first against a wall, kicked out the back of his legs to make him kneel, then picked up and cuffed Orwill and dropped him in the same position.

"What-what are you going to do with us?!" Orwill gasped, still breathless.

Wufei didn't answer. He went back to the window. The room was five stories up. Fortunately the hospital had decorative frontispieces at every story that had made the climb fairly easy in the darkness, and he'd broken the window latch earlier, long before he'd been kicked out of the room. He stood silhouetted against the faint light behind him and waved twice.

"Look...I don't know what you think you're doing but you can't just-...I just need to shout for help-..." Orwill's voice was trembling. The other man said nothing.

"Did you hurt anybody to get him in here?" Wufei asked without turning away from the window.

"Wass? N-no! We are not murderers!"

"That's what I thought. Shout and I will hurt you. It would be pretty easy to say that you were resisting arrest. Know what a bullet through the hand or the shoulder would do to your career, doctor?"

Orwill made a choking sound. Wufei went to take up the man's previous position by the door without adding anything.

The sound of a woman's heeled shoes clacked in the hallway outside. Orwill moved, then froze as Wufei drew back the hammer of the HK without turning around. Voices echoed from further down the hall, speaking English and German. The hum of air-conditioning, the beep of Heero's monitors...two light quick raps on the door. Wufei pointed the HK at it and knocked on the door with his other hand five times in quick succession.

The door opened and closed swiftly. In the dim light, a small figure moved slowly towards the bound men while holstering another HK in the back of his black jeans. On the bed, Heero's eyes widened as he recognized the new arrival, but he said nothing and the other's eyes stayed fixed on the two kneeling figures.

"Let's do this." Duo grabbed Orwill and spun him around on his knees with deceptive ease. "This the guy?" His voice was low but still pleasant. On the surface.

"No, he's a doctor here, he helped him in. But take his prints too, just to be sure."

"Hmm." A gloved finger lifted Orwill's badge thoughtfully, then drew a small reader from the pocket of the black jacket. Duo pressed several of Orwill's fingers against the glass surface of the reader, bending them roughly against the impairment of the restraints, heedless of the doctor's voiceless protests.

"Okay," he grunted as the reader confirmed the prints' storage. "Next." He grabbed the shooter's hands, still cuffed in the back, to find the man had balled them into fists.

Duo grabbed the man's shoulder and spun him around so violently the intern scrubs ripped at the shoulder seam. The man found himself staring at a dangerous smile.

"Steady, Scythe," Wufei murmured.

"Steady my ass," Duo whispered, the manic grin and the eyes still fixed on Heero's assailant. "We can do this two ways, buddy. The easy way..." wave of the scanner -

"...or my way." Shinigami concluded, a knife tapping the man on the wrist.

The attacker glared, but made up his mind quickly, looking away and relaxing his fingers. Duo sighed in obvious disappointment, his grin as sharp as the knife. A few beeps from the scanner and he stood up again.

"Were there others?" Wufei murmured.

"Yeah." Duo's smiled widened at the suddenly chagrined look from the attacker. "Two more in a car downstairs." Then a look came into his eyes as he fiddled with the blade; a look Wufei hadn't seen much even during the war. "Heavyarms, ah, took care of them. Sorry, Wing, but I've lost the taste for cold-blooded executions now that we're at peace."

Wufei rolled his eyes as a look of horror and hate warred in the man's eyes. "Scythe..."

"Wha-at?" Duo gave him a laboriously innocent look.

"Don't torture the prisoners. Heavyarms only took their prints and shouldn't have harmed them."

"Only because you told us to, Shenlong. Only because you told us to." Duo's smile was feral as he held the man's furious gaze. Then he spun, braid curving into the movement like a snake. "Sandrock has his guys ready, we'll be in touch."

He paused for a second at the foot of the bed. "Take care, buddy," was all he said. Heero nodded painfully, but Duo had already turned and was listening at the door. Satisfied, he gave Wufei a thumbs-up and slipped out as silently as nightfall.

Wufei listened at the door for a few minutes, then he turned and grabbed both men by the cuffed hands and heaved them to the small bathroom.

"You'll wait in here," he said, shoving them to the tiles. On second thought, he took a third pair of cuffs from the small bag he'd brought with him on his climb and had dumped in the tub while waiting. He fastened the shooter's cuffs to the sink's stand. Orwill he didn't bother with. "It's not comfortable, but I was able to stand it for a couple of hours, I'm sure you'll manage it too."

Door closed on Orwill's whimpered question and the killer's glare, Wufei sat down in the chair next to Heero's bed. He leaned back into it, stretched his legs and closed his eyes, settling in for another long wait with the patience born of long hours of meditation.

A few minutes passed, lulled by the slow beep of monitors and a few noises from the night staff outside.

"Chang?"

The voice was soft, and sounded thoughtful.

"Yes?"

"Why do I have a killer cuffed in my bathroom?"

"Seemed the best place to put him really. Avoid giving the nurse fits if she does a round."

"Chang?"

"Yes?"

"I still have a gun under my pillow so stop fucking around. Why haven't you called Sam yet? And what are the others up to?"

"There's something we have to deal with. Just rest, okay?"

"...They were after me from the start." It was an indifferent assertion. "Taking Relena hostage, invading the conference...threatening all those civilians...and it was just to get me."

'Just'? Wufei stared blankly at the ceiling, remembering the flicker of feeling that had made its way even through his warrior's focus as he saw the executioner put the gun against Heero's head. At the time there had only been...shock, a small reflex denial. Despite his habit of trying to self-destruct at regular intervals, Heero seemed so...invulnerable. Wufei had always assumed he'd be the first to die. That was all he'd felt with Heero kneeling on the ground with that gun to his head. The pain had started when Wufei had realized Heero was still alive and that life was a lot less simple than before. That small niggling worry was still with him, unwanted yet strangely a part of him already, and he doubted it would ever leave him; it was part of having a future again. He thought he would get used to it, eventually. He wouldn't let it hamper his performance.

"Don't let your head swell, they were after me too," he murmured, banishing the memory. "You just happened to be the one who walked into the trap first. Luckily for me, since I doubt Relena would have thrown herself on that gun for my sake."

"...She would have."

"She might have," Wufei conceded. "As it is, she was incidental, but handy for us; people will assume they were after her."

Heero grunted and dropped off to sleep with a suddenness that spoke of his exhaustion. Wufei hoped he'd get better soon; it was disconcerting having his partner so weakened.

Several hours passed. Apparently Helzman's instructions were followed because no nurses came in to check on the potentially dangerous patient. Heero slept, breath regular though still slightly labored as it pulled stitches and moved his sore ribcage, now patched together with the best bone sealant modern medicine could provide. Wufei watched the rise and fall of the sheet, a sliver of moon that briefly appear in the window's frame, the hypnotic dance of lines on the monitors...

Heero's bedside phone rang with the effect of a grenade going off. Wufei nearly knocked his chair over and Heero had the Luger out from under the pillow again. They both froze, Wufei trying to assess how awake his partner was before moving again. Heero's eyes were momentarily confused, but then he frowned in recognition. They both started as the phone rang again. Wufei, reasonably certain he wouldn't get shot now - it probably had been a bad idea leaving Heero with a gun - went to pick it up before a nurse could wonder why a phone was ringing at six in the morning when the hospital operator didn't allow calls to a visitor's room before nine. The hospital would probably not appreciate knowing how easily their phone system could be hacked.

"Shenlong," he said into the receiver.

He said nothing else, just listened. The person on the end talked for about ten minutes. Finally Wufei hung up without a word and glanced at his watch.

"Now are you going to tell me what's going on?" Heero's voice was getting back to its well-remembered tone of hard-edged detachment, but still betrayed some annoyance as Wufei elevated the end of his bed a bit and propped him up.

"No," Wufei said and turned before Heero could respond violently. He went to drag a dozing Orwill and a furious and cramped killer from the bathroom, and sat them both on the ground beneath the window.

"Doctor Edwin Orwill."

The doctor started and stared up at Wufei like a rabbit staring at a wolf.

"Your father was the pilot of the El Paso, an OZ MS carrier that was destroyed while bringing a cargo of dolls down to Earth. The convoy was attacked by a Gundam."

Orwill stared at him.

"Is that why you did this?"

Silence.

"In case you didn't know: this man here had nothing to do with that."

"He knows," the other man said with a cold smile. "But we'll get that pilot too sooner or later; he knows that."

"'That pilot' was here just earlier," Wufei murmured, eyes still fixed on Orwill. "He was the one who took your prints. The pilot of Deathscythe. Did you know that?"

Orwill continued to stare at him. His eyes were so wide they rimmed his irises with white, and his face was pale in the glimmer of morning sunlight from outside.

"You could have at least spat at him," Wufei commented with a shrug, then turned towards the other.

"Albert Ganz. You live in Düsseldorf. You used to work as a communication engineer for the Alliance. Your wife was a translator on General Noventa's staff. She got on the same plane as he did when they pretended to evacuate him from New Edwards."

Ganz glared at him, then slowly turned to stare at Heero on the bed. Heero's eyes were indifferent. Wufei knew he'd laid those ghosts to rest long before.

"This is not over. We will not let you get away with your crimes," Ganz whispered. "You can kill me; others will come. We're still at war. It doesn't end here."

"Well that remains to be seen. The other two men you left down in the car were Ernest Laus, from Basel, and Anthony Merristock from a borough of London. Laus is a hothead who believes the Gundam pilots work for a world-wide conspiracy that is trying to enslave Earth to some Colony think tank. Or... something. Merristock was part of the Libra's maintenance crew, most of his platoon went down with it. Right?" Ganz didn't answer him and Wufei hadn't expected him to.

Wufei took the television's remote from the windowsill. He keyed it on and moved aside so that both men could see it from where they were sitting. Orwill still had a dazed look in his eyes, but Ganz was frowning at the tube, puzzled. Wufei flicked it on and surfed around until he found a twenty-four hour news channel with countrywide coverage. They listened for a few minutes while the news presenter discussed the various economical problems in Germany and elsewhere after the latest proposal of free-trade between Earth and Colonies. Then some advertisements - Ganz was starting to shift restlessly - and the headlines. The attack by terrorists unknown on the conference in Berlin was discussed, photos of Relena flashed on the screen. Nothing new was actually said.

//Berlin was rocked by yet another shocking attack a few hours ago. A house in the suburbs of East Berlin was utterly destroyed in an explosion shortly after four this morning. Police say the explosion was of criminal origin. Neighbors said that armed men-//

Orwill's scream - muffled by Wufei's hand over his mouth - covered the next few sentences of the presentation as pictures of police tape and fire engines marring a residential area were shown. Ganz was staring at Wufei, eyes widening.

Wufei took his hand away when Orwill began to sob. Words in German and three names were tumbling over one another, each trying to rip the greater measure of grief from him. The uncaring voice of the presenter overrode his pain.

//-this second bombing, though smaller and confined to one apartment, was very similar to the one in Berlin. Since no-one has claimed responsibility for either, the police refuse to speculate whether these two blasts are related. They say gang activity might be involved.//

Ganz gasped. Orwill's panic had covered some of the journalist's comments but the camera had switched to a helicopter view of a low-rise building with one fire-scorched window, and the tag on the screen read Düsseldorf.

//An hour ago we learned of an explosion in Basel that may have had similarities to these two attacks. The German anti-terrorist forces are cooperating with their Swiss counterparts to determine whether this could have been the same group. News from Basel is sketchy at the moment, we will update this broadcast when-// Wufei switched it off.

"I suspect they won't mention it right away, but there is a small house burning in London tonight." Wufei's voice was distant, still looking blankly at the graying screen.

"You..." Ganz shook his head and cast a glance that was both angry and pitying at a collapsed Orwill. Then he looked up slowly at Wufei, face twisted and pale. "You...fucking...murderers..."

"Unarguably." Wufei put the remote down on the small table in the corner next to the window. Then he knelt in front of the men again.

"Orwill." He snapped his fingers in front of the man's glazed eyes a couple of times until the litany of names broke and the man focused on him, dazed. "Your wife and sons are alive. They were evacuated before the house was destroyed. So were your neighbors, to be on the safe side."

Orwill simply stared at him, mouth wide.

"Why should we believe you?!" Ganz hissed.

"Why should I lie?" Wufei answered, suddenly very tired. "The people living in the - whoa." He caught Orwill as the man slumped.

"Here." Heero tossed him a pillow from the bed. Wufei frowned reproachfully at him for the unwise movement that had visibly tightened his body with pain, but the look he got in return was uncaring. The mask was impenetrable once more.

After making Orwill comfortable, Wufei turned to Ganz. "We evacuated the people living in your apartment building as well, as they might have been harmed by the blast. They-"

"Why should I care?" Ganz said numbly. "I didn't know them. I don't have any more family for you to threaten."

"You knew them. Even if it was just arguing with the old lady in 4b because of the way her terrier always roamed the hallway outside your door-" Ganz's head whipped up to stare at him, "- or yelling at the neighbor's kids to shut up when they were playing outside your window. And you have an uncle and a young cousin living in Lucerne, and your wife had family in a little village north of Munz."

"Wha-...you didn't!" Ganz stared at him wildly.

"No, we didn't. This time."

"So what, this is a threat?"

"No. We don't do threats. It was reprisals; for Dupont, Emmet and the other cop you tazered, coshed and stuffed in a broom closet. For the innocent people you terrorized, held at gunpoint just to get at us, pistol-whipped to the ground, clipped with bullets on your escape. But we didn't kill anybody because you didn't. This time."

Ganz stared at him, hostile but unsure. Wufei sighed.

"It was you, wasn't it. You're the one who shot at me from behind the garbage container."

"I wanted the other one." Ganz stared venomously at Heero. "But the man who was killed in the conference room- one of the men who was killed. His younger brother was a cadet in that base you blew up. That kid was the only family André had left. I was thinking about him. I would have liked to have killed you for him."

"Fair enough," Wufei said with a shrug. "That's not what I wanted to talk about though. It's what you said. 'We're still at war.'"

"Yes. The Peacecraft bitch can say what she wants, we won't rest until we -"

"I found that rather amusing actually."

Ganz stared at him.

"You obviously have no concept of what the word means. Most civilians or support personnel don't; they just see the results, and they take it very personally sometimes. There were a couple of ex-soldiers among the ones I killed in the hotel yesterday. They could have told you how wrong you were.

"You aren't at war, Ganz. War is when you want something - revenge in your case, or possibly justice - badly enough where lives are of secondary importance. All that matters is to obtain what you want, and you're willing to pay the cost. All that matters to the other side in a war - since two sides are something of a necessity - is to make the cost high enough where you cannot afford it. The cost is counted in resources; weapons, money, human lives. That's war. If you were at war, you would not have attacked with five men. That was a needless waste of resources, since you were all ready and rather expecting to die. You'd have chosen one of your numbers, smuggled in two K of C-4 instead of guns, strapped it on him and had him walk up to Yuy and myself while we were guarding the VIPs. You'd have gotten us both for only one life that way. Of course there would have been casualties, but that's war, right?"

Ganz was staring at him defiantly. "So that's your answer. Any attack against you, and you'll-"

"You're not listening. I'm telling you what war is, and that you're obviously not at war, considering your actions up till now. And if you continue this way, you're quite free to attack us anytime."

"And you'll blow up our houses and our families if -"

"No. We will defend ourselves, but nothing more."

Ganz stared. Orwill, who'd come around, was looking at Wufei in glassy-eyed bewilderment.

"Personally, I don't care if you kill me in the pursuit of revenge. Actually there is a poetic justice there that I find somewhat...appealing. We were ready to die every day of the war and we are ready to die for its consequences every day for the rest of our lives. It was the cost of the war when we started it, and the price we are quite willing to pay. In a way we've all been dead since we were fifteen. So no, our lives are not that expensive.

"But never... _ever_...threaten innocents again in an effort to stalemate us.

"This is between us and whoever wants to take it out on our hides, for whatever satisfaction that will provide. But do not involve other people in this. You said you weren't murderers before, that's why you didn't kill any hospital staff to get here. Good. Continue like that. You are quite welcome to try to kill us. But don't start a war. Not with us. Trust me, we _will_ find a way of making the cost too high for you. Maybe not for you, although I'm thinking you wouldn't want to see your wife's family dragged from their homes at midnight and shot. But we will attack your resources. Like him."

Orwill recoiled from the finger pointed at him.

"We are letting you go, in case you've not figured that out yet. Feel free to tell others what I've said. Or not. It doesn't matter. I know these things have a way of spreading anyway. Soon, people will know. It will be a rumor, a legend, something people will not quite believe in and not quite dare discount. It will be said that anybody who starts a war with us - the kind of war where it doesn't matter if innocent people get caught in the crossfire - will pay. Anybody who helps them - with information, weapons, or simply by looking the other way - will pay too; them, their families, their homes, their fucking pets. It's not fair, but it's war. There will be casualties on both sides."

Wufei released the cuffs. Ganz rubbed his wrists, red and white flesh, but stayed seated against the wall, eyes wide and dazed.

"You...you really would-"

"To stop this from escalating? To stop you from making it a massacre next time?"

"...I think you're bluffing..."

"Do you?"

Silence.

"Do you think this will stop us?" Ganz finally whispered.

"Who knows. It will stop some of you." Wufei shrugged. "The others...You'll find it difficult to infiltrate a conference room full of innocent people if no-one's willing to help you. You won't find someone willing to sell you a lot of weapons or explosives if they know who your target is. And they'll be asking from now on. They'll be on the lookout for such as you. The underworld and the black market know us well already. My friends have been very busy tonight. They've been making calls, seeing people. You'd be surprised how fast this kind of bad news can travel."

"...won't stop us..."

"Good for you. I admire a man of principles. Here." Wufei grabbed a notebook from his uniform breast-pocket, scribbled a number on it and stuffed the piece of paper into the recoiling Ganz' collar. "Here's my secured number in Brussels. If you or anyone else wants my life, just call me. I swear on my name that I will show up alone, armed with my gun, one spare charger and my sword. Anytime, any place you name, just somewhere far away from any innocent bystanders. Pass that offer on to anyone who might be interested. If you or those others get lucky enough to kill me, no reprisals will be taken against you or anyone you care about."

"I can be reached at the same number," Heero said suddenly from the bed. His voice made Ganz start.

"Now get out of here." Wufei stood up and moved between the two men and Heero.

Ganz stared at Heero, then Wufei. Orwill tried to get to his feet, staggered. Wufei caught his arm and held him until he was steady. The doctor gave him a look of incredulous horror and tore himself away, staggering towards the door.

Ganz got up more slowly. He stared at Heero again, for a few long seconds. Then he smiled. "See you soon then...'Wing'."

Heero simply nodded.

Ganz walked stiffly out of the room and Wufei closed the door after him. After five minutes listening to the noises in the hallway outside, he went to sit down in the chair, suddenly limp with exhaustion.

"Take a nap, Chang, you've been up for over twenty four hours. I'll take watch."

"You need rest, Yuy."

"I've been resting. Take an hour, I'll wake you." Heero patted the lump of the Luger beneath his pillow, an unconscious gesture. Wufei grunted and closed his eyes, memories of many catnaps sitting in Nataku's cabin coming back to him.

"So I'll be seeing Ganz again," Heero remarked, voice still indifferent, as Wufei settled.

Wufei snorted. "Hell no. I forgot to mention another rule to Ganz; you only get one shot at us. He's had his go. Barton is following him, and Winner put a tail on the others too when Barton released them. Let's see who they contact with my message. See if we can follow this one to the source. We're very curious to know how they found out you and I were going to be Relena's watchdogs yesterday; you've not been near her for awhile, and I can't think how they knew I'd be there. Our movements are kept secret."

"A leak?"

"From somewhere in Preventers. Maybe even our Division."

"Hn. But you meant what you told him."

"Yes." Wufei felt his lips go numb, his limbs were heavy. His voice drifted with a will of its own. "Ganz'll spread the word...before Barton reels him in and arrests him. He'll..." Wufei relaxed in the chair, head nodding. "He'll pass the message...no more war...civilians safe...They'll know...anytime, any place...Just me...and one gun...and..."

"But not alone."

It was the last words he heard before he drifted off. No, not alone. Not anymore. Medical release and next of kin, and 'Scythe', 'Heavyarms' and 'Sandrock' one phone call away. So that was the future...? Who'd have thought...


	19. Infiltration, Part I

"Married couples tell each other a thousand things without speech"  
\--- Chinese proverb 

 

Wufei was a warrior. He would probably be so for the rest of his life. He slept with one eye open, one ear on alert, and a part of his brain always attuned to his environment. During missions, his sleep was light and fitful.

When he was in his room in the converted workshop, the 'safe- house', he slept better, knowing instinctively that, with Heero's security system and his partner's fine senses also on alert, he was Safe. His sleep was deeper, restful. The small part of his awareness that kept watch, even here, even now, analyzed all noises but rarely saw fit to wake him.

So he was aware of the steps coming up the stairs, but they didn't disturb him. Slower and heavier than normal; Heero was still hampered by his injury. But Wufei had grown used to the different tread in the three weeks his partner had been back and walking again. Way ahead of schedule of course, stupid doctors. Wufei had warned them, but they didn't listen...better off seeing a faith healer than those quacks...his thoughts drifted back into dreams as his brain processed the information without any fuss: Heero. Safe. Sleep on.

Whispers.

"So this door's to the master bedroom? Your room?"

"Hai."

Because he was Safe, the first words, in a voice that was not Heero's, did not make him bolt awake reaching for his weapon. Heero's voice further helped to keep him under; his partner would never allow anything like an enemy near Wufei while the latter was asleep.

Sound of a door opening.

"And this is the study. Cool."

Voice nearer...In his sleep, Wufei's brow wrinkled. His brain registered the voice approaching, though the only footsteps he could clearly hear were Heero's. Safe was one thing, but there were limits; his brain upped his awareness levels. Even in sleep, Wufei now had both ears pricked, seeking further information.

"Nice, nice. Ah, and this will be the spare bedroom then, right?"

"Wh-No!"

Several things hit him at once. The voice - at his door. But - familiar. Doorknob - turning.

Wufei was awake and staring at the door when it popped open. His fingers were on the Luger's hilt, but the familiarity of the voice kept him from snatching it from the bedside table and aiming.

"Oh- Ow!"

The figure outlined against the brief flash of light was hauled back on that last exclamation, accidentally jerking the door closed.

"Baka!" Heero's voice, a hiss. "Why did you- I told you Chang was sleeping upstairs!"

"Well...yeah. But I thought-...you said you had a master bedroom and a guest room, and I asked you if the room at the end was your room and you said yes..." The meanderings wound down into a shrug that Wufei could almost feel through the door.

"My room? What?"

Heero's voice indicated he was confused. Wufei, despite his brutal awakening, was not.

The owner of that unexpected voice had meant 'your room', as in, Wufei's and Heero's. He had assumed they slept together.

The rush of emotion in response to that thought was blurred by the sleep still clinging to the corners of his mind, but he was pretty sure he was annoyed.

There was a soft knock on the door. Wufei was already sitting up in bed, but didn't answer. No need to.

The door opened and a familiar tousled head was outlined against the light.

"Chang?" A whisper. "You awake?"

"What do you think?"

"Sorry."

"Yuy, what the fuck is Maxwell doing here?"

"It's complicated. Go back to sleep."

The door closed softly. Wufei stared at it.

"Hey, sorry man." A whisper in that oh-so-recognizable voice, somewhere near the stairwell. "I didn't realize...Say, where am I gonna sleep?"

"Couch," Heero growled softly.

"Oh. Well, okay. It looked comfortable-" the voice and footsteps faded down the stairs.

Wufei stared at the door, then shook his head once, violently. Unfortunately it appeared he was indeed already awake.

No way in hell was he going to back to sleep before finding out why Maxwell was setting up house on their couch.

He was dressed and coming down the stairs a few minutes later. His last hope it might have been an illusion born of exhaustion faded. Duo Maxwell was sitting at the counter, large as life, sipping the instant coffee Wufei and Heero kept for their rare guests.

"Wufei! Hey, sorry I woke you, buddy. Didn't know which room you were in." Duo waved at him cheerfully.

That's one way of putting it, Wufei thought darkly, still furious at Duo's blithe assumption about his relationship with Heero.

Heero had stood as soon as Wufei had come down the stairs, refilling the kettle and setting it to boil again. Duo's eyes, curious and alert, went from Heero's back to Wufei, who was hesitating at the counter.

"Use my stool," Heero said without turning around.

"Oh, sorry guys, didn't realize you only had the two. This yours, Fei? Here, siddown. Least I can do. Heero tells me you were out all last night, following a suspect?"

"Yes." All last night, and the night before. It was now early afternoon and he needed his sleep, but more than that, he needed to know what Duo was doing here. Maxwell's voice rang too loudly in the big, empty space of the workshop's floor. He was perched on the counter near the kettle now, finishing his coffee and giving Wufei his well-remembered grin, which was too bright and vibrant to bear after only four hours of sleep.

"Find anything good? Did the guy have loads of guilty secrets?"

"It was a woman, and no," Wufei muttered, rubbing his face, his interrupted sleep clinging like grime to his skin. Heero was still preparing the tea but his head suddenly tilted slightly, indicating he was listening; he'd done some hacking and ID checking on the case. It was to him Wufei was speaking as he continued, though he didn't look in his partner's direction. "Turned out to be a false lead. Armand's team came back with the contact, their tail tried to close the deal last night. All settled and passed on to ESUN services."

Heero nodded minutely. Duo, missing the whole silent part of the interchange between the partners, looked puzzled. Wufei didn't really care if he followed the conversation or not.

He nodded in thanks as Heero put a cup of tea in front of him before returning to his own stool with a protein blend drink from the fridge. Wufei took a sip, then another. Duo was beginning to fidget.

Feeling sufficiently awake to be able to cope, Wufei put down the tea. Heero immediately started talking.

"Maxwell is here to test the defenses of Ops Centre."

Wufei hesitated, his hand hovering over an apple in the basket on the counter. "Because you're out of commission?"

Heero nodded. He tried to break in to Ops every so often, to test their defenses. It wasn't a very serious attempt. The guards were warned he was coming. It was mainly a test of the wired security and computer system. But he still had to be physically able. And he wasn't quite up to that level just yet.

Heero's recovery, in the past four weeks since being shot, was nothing short of amazing, and had their clinic's head, Dr Hampton, completely flabbergasted...and his staff mightily relieved. In the few days Heero had spent in the Ops clinic, he'd been just about as impossible a patient as Wufei had expected. The bone-like alloy that had been injected into Heero's vertebra and ribs was even more solid than the skeletal structures it held together, so the fractures were no issue, but his muscles and nerves had been damaged by the shot and the surgery, and bed rest had been indicated for at least two weeks, followed by intense and thorough physiotherapy to regain lost mobility.

The so-called patient had rearranged his room in the clinic on the first day - all by himself, despite strict orders not to move - to get a better view of the doorway and have his back to the wall. He'd broken out of the clinic on the third night to filch some supplies and power tools from the mechanics division. The next day the staff had found a metal bar bolted across a corner of his room at head height, and Heero doing minimal pull-ups and stretching 'to keep his back muscles fit'. When a nurse changed his bed and found the Glock he'd stashed at the head of the mattress, Hampton had called in Wufei to 'help deal with it'. Wufei had pointed out that Heero would have to be a good deal more weakened than he was for Wufei to be able to disarm him. Hampton had stared at him as if they were both insane.

Finally, Heero had only spent five days in the clinic before being kicked out as being way too healthy for the staff to deal with. He had returned to the converted workshop and promptly ignored all appointments for physiotherapy, since he knew better than anyone the limits to which he could push his body and he wasn't going to stand for some worrywart physician telling him what he could and couldn't do. Wufei had wisely said nothing.

He was making tremendous progress but he wasn't up to breaking into Ops yet. But that didn't mean he had to call on Maxwell! Wufei looked at his partner from the corner of his eye. While Heero was recovering, Wufei had been doing a few solo missions or helping out other teams. Pretty boring work for the most part, but nonetheless necessary. He wasn't that busy though, he could have done the test in Heero's stead. The annoyance he'd felt since he'd woken up - been woken up actually - increased. Apparently his abilities to break into a stronghold were not comparable to the ‘perfect soldier's’.

Heero caught the loaded look with an even one of his own; he was probably used to Wufei's thought processes and his hyper-sensitivity to any suggestion that his skills were being disparaged.

"I would have asked Maxwell here even if I was fit," Heero's voice was neutral, but a minimal hand gesture told Wufei to calm down, he wasn't being taken lightly. "It's been a year since we set up Ops's defenses. I want to put them through a thorough run."

Wufei paused with the cup near his lips. "Thorough?"

"He wants me to crack the joint!" Duo chuckled, finally unable to contain himself. "Cold!"

The teacup rattled against the counter in alarm. "You don't mean-"

"It's the only viable test," Heero explained. "No warning of the personnel. Une is the only one who's been informed. Duo will go in knowing nothing of the system as it is set up, as if he were really trying to infiltrate the base."

Wufei's eyes were wide as he stared from Duo's grin to Heero's calm eyes. "He's going to get shot."

"Don't diss the man, Fei. They won't even see me!" Duo snorted.

"He'll be going in with a flack jacket, and strict orders to surrender if caught without trying anything stupid." Heero's eyes were like twin blow-torches, melting even Duo's indomitable grin a fraction.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Just remember to bail me out of jail, in the _very unlikely event_ that happens." Duo sniffed.

"So, when are you going to do this insane stunt? Tonight?" Wufei asked, wondering where their couch came into the equation.

"Nah. 'Wing' said to go in cold, not blind. I'm tackling this like a regular job. First I case the joint. That'll take me one or two nights, depending on outer security. Then I'll probe, see how far I get. Then I get serious and-"

"How long are you going to be here?" Wufei interrupted. The skin of his neck felt like someone had pressed cold metal to it.

"Best guess, two weeks. Depends on how fast the final phase goes."

"Or if you get arrested on your first attempt," Heero murmured, finishing his protein drink.

"Not gonna happen, Yuy, not gonna happen."

Wufei barely heard their banter. Two weeks, or more, with Maxwell? That much time on a mission with Duo wouldn't be a problem, but...here? In their house? Something within Wufei reacted with an immediate No! and from the way Heero was slightly hunched over the empty bottle and watching him, he was rather expecting that reaction and not really looking forward to it.

"And you're planning on staying here the full duration of the mission? I mean, here with us?" Wufei's shoulders were tense as he glanced at Heero. His body language clearly said: Have you gone insane?!

"Huh-uh!" Duo said brightly. Heero caught Wufei's glance, and he let his fingers twitch away from the bottle, a little flick, and an eyebrow curved slightly. Wufei could read the gesture and the reasoning perfectly, as if Heero had actually said the words. Duo's doing me a favor here, what was I supposed to do? Tell him to fuck off?

"Ah." Wufei's nails rapped against the counter. _Yes!_

Heero's eyes hooded fractionally. Well you try then.

Fine! Wufei's back informed him as he twisted on his stool to fully face Duo. "You might be more comfortable staying in a hotel than on our couch. Une would cover the expenses."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Heero move languidly to lean his chin on his fist, body language contemptuous. He'd probably already tried that line of argument, and many others. Heero would be just as reluctant as Wufei to let someone stay in their sanctum for any length of time, especially someone as...overwhelming as Duo.

"Hey, no probs, Fei! I'm used to bunking out. And I hate being lonely! Couch is fine."

Wufei smiled tightly. "You'll be doing most of your work at night, right?"

"Unless you give all the guards really, really dark sunglasses, yeah."

"So you'll be here during the day, but Heero and I will be out of the house. You'll be alone, and we have no television or sound system to keep you from getting bored."

Duo blinked several times, while Heero suddenly relaxed, his eyes widening fractionally. He had not apparently thought of that particular line of attack. Wufei's smile broadened a hair's breath as Duo looked pained.

"...Damn, you guys living in a monastery or something? You're not going to get me up every day at four for morning prayers, right?"

Wufei saw Heero's eyebrow twitch a fraction. He looked like he wanted to say yes.

"Oh well, it'll be tough, but...I can watch the tube another day. It's so rare to see you guys! I'll stay here."

Wufei's cup trembled slightly as his fingers clenched, and he glanced reluctantly at Heero. But the latter didn't look smug. Strong shoulders slumped a bit. It was a good try...guess we're stuck though.

"You'll see, guys! We'll have loads of fun!"

The rather funereal response to his cheerful exclamation was, as usual, completely ignored.

The next few hours were, predictably enough, spent listening to Duo. That is, Wufei listened while idly finishing his report, and Heero ran some diagnostics on the Ops computer system, the lack of brutal 'shut up's as close as he was going to get to chatting.

Duo did not seem to mind the apparent lack of interest in what he had to say. He was fiddling around with his own laptop, probing the first line of Heero's defences in Ops, occasionally throwing little pieces of information, nuggets and dross, over his shoulder; they shaped up into a crooked mosaic illustrating the last year of his life and his contact with the other pilots.

If pressed - as in, interrogated by a professional, with the aid of the appropriate truth serums - Wufei would have admitted that he was interested in what Duo had to say. Otherwise he'd have gone to work in his room. He was curious about how the other pilots were doing since the war. The only contact he'd had with them had been through the Preventer grapevine, and their rally to his call four weeks ago.

Duo and Trowa were still working with the Preventers part time, when Une needed their special skills. Otherwise, Duo helped someone called Hilde in a salvage business; Wufei vaguely remembered a short-haired, unconscious girl being wheeled into Peacemillion's infirmary which seemed to go with that name. Duo also spent time with Quatre, presumably for the touch of luxury that would provide. Trowa was working at the circus. Wufei learned that Catherine had survived the war and was doing fine, though she still couldn't make a cup of coffee to save her life. Trowa occasionally stayed with Duo and helped out Hilde with the bigger salvage orders, when construction suit work was needed. According to Duo's little anecdotes, he and the others were doing well. Duo never lied, but he didn't always tell the truth either. In a way - a way Wufei had been completely oblivious of until the very end of the war - Duo was almost as private a person as he and Heero. He just hid himself in a totally different way, and Wufei did not know Duo well enough to be able to read him like he could read his partner. But it was not his place to dig. Wufei decided to take Duo's words at face value. He and the other pilots were 'doin’ okay'.

Duo tried to invite them out to dinner that night, to repay their ‘generous hospitality’. But Wufei was too tired and Heero was, well, Heero. Duo munificently took care of the take-out, and they went to bed early. Wufei woke with a start at two in the morning at the faint sound of their front door closing; Duo, going to stake out Ops. It created a fissure in his mental safe haven. He trusted Duo. With his life. He'd be able to sleep again, deeply but...Wufei felt the shape of something awry in his life, small but annoying. Something he couldn't define yet.

These would be a long two weeks.

 

 

For an instant upon waking up, Wufei wondered if it had all been a strange dream. When he was in the safe-house, he normally woke clear- headed and focused and ready for another day on the edge. Having Duo Maxwell invade their space was shaking his center. Memories of the war blended with the twinges of a private man having to share his home territory. Wufei stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, trying to get used to the idea.

He descended the stairs, automatically timing his soft steps to the rhythm of Heero's exercises. He could hear his partner running through his usual morning routine on the weight lifter. Working his upper arms by the sound of it.

Duo was sitting at the counter with a mug of coffee in his hand. He was staring at Heero. His eyes were narrowed and his face looked older and marred by lines of anger as he watched Heero struggle at the weights. The expression lasted only long enough for Wufei to catch it; as soon as Duo realized someone was in the kitchen area with him the expression disappeared as if it had never been, replaced by the usual good humor. But Wufei had seen that look and knew what it meant. He'd have to have a word with Duo. Heero and Wufei had agreed that no further reprisals would be taken against Heero's aggressors, unless they were foolish enough to try again. Wufei would have to make sure Duo abided by this. That expression had been that of Shinigami looking for blood. Legalities and peace and the social contract could not quite banish this demon; those who wounded one of Death's few friends could only hope for a swift demise.

Duo leaned his chin against his fist, turning his face towards Wufei.

'Should he really be doing this?' he mouthed, hiding the words from Heero with his hand.

Wufei shrugged. "No." He kept his voice low but he didn't turn away from his partner, who continued pressing the weights, ignoring them.

Duo stared at Wufei, eyes narrowing again; this time the anger was directed towards a visible target. 'Aren't you going to stop him?'

"War's over, Maxwell," Wufei said with an arrogant smile he didn't really feel. "I don't take suicide missions anymore."

The blue eyes were blade-thin slits, dissecting his words, his stance. 'You aren't going to say _anything?_ ' The last word was mouthed aggressively.

"He knows what he's doing, Duo," Wufei replied, voice very quiet but firm as he turned towards the kettle.

A disgusted huff was all the answer he got. Wufei listened with one ear to the sound of weights hissing. He knew why Duo was upset; could see in his mind's eye the trickle of sweat on Heero's pale face that came from controlling pain rather than effort. But his partner had been training his body into a fine-tuned instrument of death for over half his lifetime; Heero knew how to tread the fine line between pushing his body towards optimum recovery and harming himself.

Of course, that line did not take into account anything as trivial as excruciating pain. Wufei didn't turn around, kept his eyes nailed to the kettle. His mind ran through its frequent litany, the words repeated like a rolling prayer wheel. Lords of Hell, may J be rotting in your deepest pit, the one reserved for abusers of children, with the words 'the means justify the end' burnt across his body with a red-hot poker.

The ring interrupted his thoughts, the swish of Heero's weights and Duo's unarticulated grumbles of concern. Heero let the weights swing back carefully and slipped the phone from his pocket. All the way across the room, Wufei could see the way Heero's body tensed as he read the caller ID, and he guessed who was calling. Though seeing how often she'd phoned in the last two weeks, it wasn't all that powerful a deduction.

Heero held the phone like he wanted to hurl it across the room, but he knew Wufei was watching. Wufei leaned back against the counter and glared reprovingly. Stormy blue eyes flung a look his way, swift and lethal as shuriken, but Heero flipped open the phone without further procrastination.

"Relena," he snapped. "I told you to stop- just a minute."

With another murderous glare at Wufei he stood and headed towards the stairwell, grabbing his towel in passing.

"Be polite, Yuy," Wufei reminded him sharply as Heero passed him with the phone muffled against his chest. Heero didn't even bother to grunt a response. It had already taken considerable persuasion on Wufei's part to get him to agree to answer and talk to her each time she called.

"Soooo...the Princess has his number?"

Wufei turned back to the kettle, dismissing Duo's inquisitive look. He nodded in response and poured hot water into his cup. The delicate smell of white tea rose with the steam.

"Huh, she's still chasing him, hm? Man that girl don't know when to quit! She's got it bad."

"No," Wufei answered softly, eyes on the stairwell. "She only wants to know he's alive."

There was a scrape against the kitchen's cheap linoleum, as if Duo had twisted around to get a better look at Wufei's back. "Know he's alive? What do you mean? From the way he's acting, she's been calling for awhile now."

"The last time she saw him, he was lying on the floor with two bullets in the back, as far as she knew, and she was being dragged away from his body. She hasn't seen him since. I don't think a phone call is enough." Wufei's voice was even, he tried to keep the pity and annoyance out of it; they weren't completely deserved. After all, he'd been living with the proof of Heero's survival - fighting, arguing, refusing to stay in bed and pushing himself to the edge of exhaustion with typical Yuy stubbornness. The only thing Relena had was a curt voice on the other end of the phone.

He turned towards the counter to find Duo scrutinizing him. "You think he should go see her?"

Wufei shrugged. "It would put her mind at rest. I know it doesn't make sense, but then logic has never been that woman's strong suit. But he won't."

"Oh?" Duo's eyebrows twitched up.

"That's why she's calling so often. He said he would never see her again and she's trying to change his mind."

"Whoa. Did a jealous lover ask him to give her up?"

Wufei almost spilled his tea. He glared at the joker. He'd been having a serious conversation here! Why had Duo-...oh, what else had he expected.

"No, Maxwell," Wufei ground out. "Yuy's reasons are as eminently logical as always, if you can get your head around that concept." Duo's grin widened. "She represents something important to him. He would die to defend that, and her. But as it turns out, the only time she was truly at risk in this last year was because someone was using her to get at him. His presence near her is a danger and he won't allow that. End of story. She seems to have the same lack of basic understanding that you do, though, hence all those calls."

"So...it's not because someone close to Heero asked him to cut the ties?"

"...There is no one close to Heero," Wufei answered, thoroughly puzzled now by the question and the look in Duo's eyes. Playful, cheerful...calculating.

Duo's grin seemed artificial. His eyes had darkened at Wufei's response, to the color of deep pools. "Oh? Not even this guy I know who's been working with him and living with him and shooting people by his side for almost eight months?"

Wufei put his cup down with a click. "If there is something you want to ask, Maxwell, just ask."

"Okay. Are you two a couple?"

Wufei gave Duo a long, cold glare just for the enjoyment of seeing him edge back and adopt a slightly more defensive posture.

"No. We're partners," he finally said with some relief. He had wondered if this question might come up, after Duo's strange assumption he and Heero slept in the same bed. He'd been ready to hedge or lie outright, but in this instance he could answer the question truthfully. Being a couple implied affection, love, mutual support. If Duo had used some other term - the word 'fuck-buddies' floated through Wufei's mind, in the L2 street-rat twang that seemed to vocalize his more inappropriate thoughts - he'd have had a harder time denying it, but a couple? No.

Duo was staring at him as if unsure whether to believe him or not. Then he slouched back against the counter.

"No? Really?"

"No, really. How on earth did you come up with that ridiculous theory?"

Duo's eyes twitched away from his. "...You two have been awfully tight since the war. We were wondering-..."

Wufei snorted contemptuously and Duo bridled and glared down at the counter.

"So you won't mind if I make a play for him?"

Wufei choked on his tea, and coughed a couple of times. "Wh-what?"

Duo's head was still bowed but Wufei caught a flash of blue through brown bangs. The voice was easy and sensuous. "Hey, the guy's probably horny. And he's hot. And he's available, if what you say is true." Duo finally lifted his head, leaned back easily against the counter, with that same grin painted on his face, but his eyes were level and clear.

"...You work part-time for Preventers, right?"

"Yeah." Duo looked puzzled. "Why, is there some requirement that I have to work all-out for Une to be able to jump his bones?"

"No, I was just curious to know if part-time came with full medical coverage."

"Uh? Wha- oh I get it. Trying to tell me to lay off the stud?" Duo leered.

"Trying to warn you, but it's your health. Do what you want."

"You don't mind if Heero and me hook up?" Duo clarified, enunciating each word; he was looking at Wufei as if examining every inch of his face for the slightest trace of hesitation. The man has the curiosity, the adventurousness and the hormones of an alley cat, and he better have every one of the nine lives that goes with that if he's even remotely serious, Wufei thought, suddenly amused.

"Mind? Not at all. In fact I wish you the best of luck, Duo. I think you'd both make a very cute couple," Wufei said loudly, since he could almost feel the glowering presence of the other half of the 'cute couple' somewhere near the stairwell, cutting into his back with a thermal-beam stare. Score one for Chang. Maybe there would be some source of entertainment out of Duo's visit after all.

"Hear that, Heero?" Duo tossed over his shoulder. "We got Wu's blessing! Want to go out tonight?"

"Did you scout out the Center already, as you planned?" Heero asked through clenched teeth. He must have given Relena all of thirty seconds to make her case again, as he was showered and dressed in jeans and a clean shirt.

"Yup." Duo turned and leaned back against the counter, looking Heero up and down. His pose was insolent, and just a touch seductive.

"Then we'll go out tonight, so you can make your first attempt at breaking into Ops," Heero snapped.

"A mission for two in the moonlight. How delightful." Wufei murmured. Duo twisted around and stared at him as if he'd gone insane, and it was true that Wufei rarely let anyone other than Heero see this side of him. He wouldn't if they were on a mission, but they were at home, between jobs, and he was too used to their baiting to be able to pass _that_ one up.

Heero had agreed, reluctantly, that he'd have to wait until fully recovered before they resumed their sparring, so Wufei was quite safe from physical retaliation, though the glare he got was the next best thing.

There was some surprise in Heero's deadly scowl. They never dueled, verbally or physically, in front of anyone else. It was too private; it was part of who they were. It wasn't always light banter. It could be hard and cruel, a tool designed to search and cut out the faults and weaknesses that they could see in the other, even if it hurt. Wufei shrugged minimally at Heero's questioning look and let his eyes flicker towards Maxwell. This was Duo. He was...'a friend' was a vague term, 'an ally' was not strong enough. Duo had seen them in their darkest glory, their most murderous splendor, their weakest humanity. Duo, and the others were close enough to be allowed to see some of what made the partners tick. Within limits. Besides, if Duo still had any mushy ideas about Heero and Wufei being a couple, listening to their put-down matches and score keeping would probably disillusion him quickly.

"Good. Tell me when you're ready to leave tonight, Maxwell. Chang will be going with us. Since he's feeling playful," Heero ground out that last as if he was chewing glass. Duo twisted again, staring at Heero this time. Yes, that tone would have certainly taken the aforementioned mushy ideas, shot them in the back of the neck and buried them six feet under. Duo knew them both well, but not well enough; he listened to Heero's words, winced at the cold look on his face, but he couldn't read everything else about Heero the way Wufei could. Heero's body spoke eloquently to the man who'd battled against it, treated its injuries, fought at its back, and, well, there was the sex too, of course. Heero was agreeing with Wufei's assessment of the situation, on that level where no words reached, where the partners operated; he was playing along.

"Maxwell, I've taken the day off today." Heero turned the glare on Duo, who flinched slightly. Apparently immunity to The Scowl faded in time, Wufei concluded. "You wanted to go into town to pick up your equipment?"

"Yeah, that's right." Duo jumped off the stool and stretched, recovering quickly. "I don't like getting the customs guys excited, so I shipped my B&E stuff over via the Sweeper route. Should be at the shuttle port by now. I also need a few things in town. You gonna be my escort?" There was the slightest purr in the question, which Heero completely missed, much to Wufei's leisurely disappointment.

"Yes. Car's outside. Drop you off at Ops on the way, Chang?" Heero asked, heading toward the door. Typically for the soldier, he'd apparently decided that the previous 'cute couple' conversation had simply not happened. He wasn't given that option for long as Duo, with a conspiratorial smirk at Wufei, ran to catch up to him and draped his arm over Heero's shoulder. That garnered the expected reaction, but if Duo minded the elbow in the ribs and the scowl, he didn't show it. Wufei followed with a vague sense of amusement of his partner's obvious discomfort. Looked like peacetime hadn't changed Duo's dangerous sense of humor.

 

 

Wufei returned early, having finished up the odd jobs Une had lined up for him. Unlike a certain soldier they both knew, Une could assign a temporary partner to Wufei and the latter wouldn't chew him up and spit him out again. But neither one of them wanted to get Wufei involved in a long-term case with anyone else; Une shared his faith in Heero's healing abilities and knew he'd soon be on his feet and ready for the more deadly challenges she regularly handed to them. Wufei withstood the boredom with growing irritability, passing it on to the punching bag when he got back to the house.

Smash; the bag's chain clanked,

It was even worse today...

Thump-thump-thump-jangle; a series of quick uppercuts pummeled the bag.

Something about Maxwell being here, even if so far he'd been a fairly agreeable house-guest as far as Wufei was concerned.

Step back, spin around - whack - high kick - the chains holding the bag groaned where they clung to the high ceiling and floor for dear life.

...Probably the lack of sparring...thump-smash!...and the lack of sexual relief. They'd agreed to postpone that too, until Heero was back into something like his usual shape. They were a bit too used to rough play to take a chance.

He stilled the quivering bag with one hand and looked up expectantly when he heard the car pull up outside. Duo's voice preceded the returning men.

"- didn't get much of a chance to explore, though, their security system was tops. As you'd expect from any bank, as well as a bank that's financing guerrillas. Une was happy enough with what I brought her, we had enough evidence to - does she give you bonuses when you ace a mission?"

"No."

Duo was carrying a stool, price tag still dangling from one leg. That sent something hot and spiky spiraling down into Wufei's stomach, though he couldn't explain why the idea of having three stools bugged him so much.

"Really? You're getting screwed. Me and Tro get a nice little pile of cash whenever we exceed Her Ladyship's expectations. You need to talk to Quatre, get him to negotiate your working terms, babe. Hiya Wu."

...Babe?

Wufei stopped glaring at the stool to look at Heero, carefully measuring his partner's reaction. Heero looked like the usual block of ice, but Wufei's life had hung on his partner's slightest movements, and they spoke clearly to him now. Heero appeared as startled as Wufei at the endearment. But not overly angry. Apparently he was giving Duo the same leeway he accorded to Wufei's sharp tongue. Wufei wondered if Duo appreciated the gesture, and thought maybe he did. And the L2 denizen's native astuteness would also know not to push it too far. That was good. It meant Wufei could stop worrying about Duo's health and enjoy the look on Heero's face as he contemplated a universe in which someone had called him 'babe'. That was even better. Wufei abandoned the hapless punching bag and went to shower, feeling a bit less annoyed at the world in general and wounded partners in particular.

The evening meal was...interesting. Duo and Wufei talked about work and Preventers they both knew, and occasionally Duo would drop a line Heero's way. The bland responses were probably better than the curt rebuttal he was expecting, and he looked rather surprised at that. Wufei, who knew his partner a whole lot better, was exceedingly amused by the fact that Duo thought he might actually be getting somewhere when in reality most of his hints and innuendos were flying right over his target's head.

'Looks like I'm doing okay,' Duo mouthed smugly at Wufei while Heero's back was turned.

'You're standing still, Maxwell.' Wufei moved his lips in silence, smirking. 'Try to be less subtle.'

A series of emotions flickered across Duo's face; surprise, annoyance, and a definite 'you asked for it' as Heero sat down, putting some fruit on the table.

"Say... that couch is kinda soft for me," Duo said slowly, eyes fixed on Wufei. "Maybe I could sleep with you tonight, Heero?"

Wufei had to bite the inside of his cheek at the look on Heero's face. An acid glare hurled his way indicated that Heero hadn't missed his amused reaction.

"My bed is too narrow, according to some," Heero answered, with a sidelong glance at Wufei, who'd complained about it before. "I suggest you sleep with Chang. He has a double."

Wufei almost dropped the pear he'd picked up. Score, Yuy. He spared a conceding glare for his partner before scalding Duo with a look that blasted away the words that were about to come out of the joker's mouth. "I already suggested you'd be better off at a hotel, Duo," he commented sharply.

"Trying to get me out of the way, Wufei?" Duo asked, coy and teasing.

Now he was getting double-teamed. Great.

"Will you be sleeping at all tonight, Maxwell? Aren't you going to try your break-in?"

Duo grinned, then generously allowed the diversion. "That'll only take me a couple of hours. It's just a first probe. Speaking of which, I'm going to take one last quick look around the fence and pick my entry point. Heero? Come with?"

Heero had missed most of the flirting previously and had probably not picked up much of a hint from the bed remark; the mention of the mission had put him into soldier-mode anyway. There wasn't the slightest hesitation or annoyance on his face as he nodded firmly and went to put on some dark clothes. Duo - who was, no surprise there, already wearing black - stayed sitting at the counter.

Wufei put the dishes in the sink and turned for the soap to find Duo leaning near him, close to his face. Wufei jerked back, reflexes screaming. Duo had been as silent as a shadow.

"Time to lay down your hand, Wu. If you don't want him, I'm going for it."

Wufei stared at the hard blue eyes.

"Want-...you're serious?" Duo could kid around, but there was a limit he wouldn't cross. There was a look in those blue eyes that didn't belong to the joker's mask. Wufei wished he'd noticed it sooner. He'd been assuming this was one of Maxwell's little head games.

"Yes," Duo smirked, it wasn't an amusing expression. "I don't steal from a brother, so if you're even remotely interested, now's the time to holler. But if you don't, finders keepers."

"Max-... Duo..." Wufei tried to gather his thoughts. This wasn't so funny anymore. "I...Heero is not going to be interested, and he's not subtle when he puts people down." Ask Relena.

Duo's expression went from a hint of 'oh so you are interested' to puzzled to outright amazed. "You're worried about me?!"

"Well...I don't think he'd try anything violent. And anyway, he's slowed down by his back injury so -"

"The only thing you have to worry about is losing your shot at him. Shinigami gets his guy." Duo's eyes had narrowed. "Watch what you're saying."

"Watch what you're doing."

"Why, Chang, I didn't know you cared."

"Only a very, very little bit, Maxwell."

Duo looked away slowly as Heero came down the stairs, slipping on his jacket. Heero looked puzzled to see them close together in front of a sink full of dirty dishes and no water. Duo smiled at him and nodded to the door.

"Let's ride, Tonto."

"What?"

"Never mind." Duo fell into step with him. Close. There wasn't any of the previous, playfully blatant display to disarm the intentional approach into Heero's personal space. Wufei felt he was watching a mountain lion shadowing its prey. He stared at the closed door for awhile, wondering what Duo was up to. _Was_ he serious...? Wufei's instincts might not be wholly accurate when it came to the multi-faceted mask of his more volatile friend, but he felt that Duo was definitely on the hunt. Shinigami gets his guy...But those same instincts warned Wufei that he was missing something...he could still hope this was an overly elaborate joke. He turned towards the dishes and washed them absently. His ears kept straining for the sound of returning footsteps at the door while his mind was lost in conjecture.

 

 

The October air was cool and damp. It smelled of nighttime and rain, with a faint chemical taint from the pharmaceutics plant upwind. The night clung to their skins, casually ignoring jackets and clothes. True to his word, Heero had insisted Wufei accompany them as Duo set out on his first attempt.

Heero and Wufei sat against the car hood, on either side to keep an eye on the grounds behind the fence and on the road, normally deserted in the rundown industrial zone. Duo was dressed in black, his braid tucked inside the flak jacket, and tackle like climber's gear around his waist and thighs. He had a pouch of various tools and lock picks attached to his belt, a small laptop in a slim case on his back, and he still moved without a sound.

"Okay, guys, I'm off." Duo's voice was low, but not anywhere near subdued. He stared at them, arms akimbo, and grinned. "Leavin' you guys behind to go and make my way into a heavily defended base, all alone against an unknown number of armed guards...Just like old times!"

"Don't blow anything up," Wufei and Heero said at pretty much the same time.

Duo rolled his eyes and grinned. He walked up to the fence, climbed it with quick efficient movements, propelled himself over the barbed-wire section as if floating through the air, and dropped the three meters down to the other side with barely more noise than a cat. He stepped away and the darkness slipped around him like an old familiar coat.

Heero double-checked his cell phone, then crossed his arms over his chest. His fingers tapped his biceps; patience wasn't really his thing. Wufei settled down in a very light meditative state, keeping an eye on the road and trying to ignore Heero who was looking at his watch approximately every ten seconds.

"He should be breaking in by now," Heero muttered. Silence settled again, textured by the whoosh of cars from the nearby highway and the faint buzz of streetlamps. Heero started to fidget against the car and Wufei sighed internally. And fought off the sudden, strange urge to go around to Heero's side of the car and sit nearer to him. He shifted, and decided he needed a distraction.

"So, have you fallen for Maxwell's charms yet?" he murmured. Wondering if Heero would tell him what had happened during their scoping out of Ops. If anything had happened.

"What?" The car creaked. Wufei glanced over his shoulder to find Heero in a mirror position, looking at him slightly bewildered.

"Maxwell. He's been flirting with you." Wufei stared, surely Heero had at least realized that much by now.

Apparently not. "With me? No. He was jerking around earlier, but that was just Maxwell. He did the same during the war."

And we were both so self-centered and callow, we never even noticed it was teasing until much later, Wufei added mentally. Well, in Wufei's case, some sexual frustration may have made him take Duo's jibes a bit more seriously than they were intended. He'd been...rather resentful of Maxwell back then. Well, envious, actually; envious of the sure sensuality, of the ease of his mock flirting, of his attitude of getting what he wanted. He hadn’t realized it was as much a mask as Heero's steel facade.

Heero was looking at Wufei with a slightly raised eyebrow. "If anything, that was mild compared to what he was like when we first started hiding out together. The second time I met him, during the war, we'd been undercover in a school for two weeks when he approached me with two cans of green and purple spray paint. He suggested that since we were both going to attack the nearby base, we should each...'tag' the guards we stunned or killed. Whoever had the smallest number of hits afterwards would clean the other's Gundam with his toothbrush."

Wufei's lips curled despite his best effort to stop them. "And what did you reply to that interesting idea?" 

"That I had no intention of attacking the base at the same time he did, and that if I had any more proof he was insane, I would consider him a danger to my mission and terminate him." Heero's voice still held a trace of aggravation. "That actually shut him up for awhile."

Until he realized you weren't nearly as murderous as you made out to be, just as he wasn't nearly as frivolous as we thought. Wufei chuckled, though inside he was writhing a bit, embarrassed at other war-time memories. Duo must have had a great time at his expense; Wufei had fallen for every one of his teases. And what was worse, there had been times he'd feared Heero might have actually been attracted to the handsome, sexually mature Duo. But that, his partner would never, ever know.

"Why are you worried?" Heero's eyes had narrowed.

"He'd stopped teasing like this at the end of the war," Wufei said slowly. "When we were all aboard Peacemillion." When they were all about to die. When keeping the masks seemed trivial, a waste of resources. When it was almost a comfort to know that in the eternal night that was reaching for them, four other people had glimpsed the person behind the warrior/killer/joker/pacifist/mercenary. Four comrades had seen past the posturing and the lies, and they were not ashamed to die side by side. Duo had still been the most light- hearted one of the lot, his cheeriness maintained as a relief for his friends and a slap in their enemies' faces, but he showed the other Duo too. Wufei had found the serious, focused, cheerfully bloodthirsty and driven young man to be more than an ally...not quite a friend...something else. Duo's words came back to him. 'I don't steal from a brother'. Yes, maybe that was it...

The war was over and they'd reassembled their masks, to live in a peace they'd created and knew little about. But things didn't go back to the way they were before, thank the gods. The older Wufei knew himself and his partner much better now. He knew that Heero would never risk a commitment towards someone who could become emotionally compromised over him. Even if their job wasn't so dangerous, it just wasn't Heero's way. He'd been brought up in a world of cold choices and sacrifices, and it was where he thrived. He wouldn't compromise that for anybody. No, not anybody. And Duo...Duo had a deep core of loyalty towards his friends/family and his cause, something that was so deeply a part of him that he hid it almost by reflex, as if expecting from past experience to have anything or anyone he loved used against him.

Which was why Wufei had assumed Duo was joking, even when he'd seemed so serious. Wufei didn't think Duo would 'go' for a comrade, actively try to seduce one of them purely for lust, and drive right in to a sticky situation. It was tempting to think it was a joke, but...

"Are you sure he's just teasing now?" Wufei asked softly, breaking the silence that had settled between them again. Heero still had the social instincts of road kill, even when it concerned someone he knew. Wufei didn't think he'd pick up the subtleties.

Heero snorted. "Certain, and I'm not the one he's teasing, Chang."

Wufei turned slowly on the hood of the car after a quick glance around. "What do you mean?"

"We had a chat while scouting around the fence earlier," Heero muttered. "He was talking about you."

"What about me?"

"He said you looked lonely, and obviously needed to get laid." Heero's mouth was a hard, uncaring line, but he shifted uneasily, making the car's hood creak - a touch frustrated, Wufei thought with a slight smile. "He thinks you 'have the hots' for him. He said some fairly unflattering things about you being rather uptight, but that he might..." Heero frowned. "He said he might throw you a bone. I'm not sure what that meant."

"It means I will kill him when he gets back," Wufei ground out. But actually he was rather relieved. There was no way Duo was serious about-...no, he wasn't serious. It had been Maxwell clowning around as usual, and since Wufei had been the brunt of that joke, Duo had put on a grand show for his victim. Amazing, after all that time and all they'd been through, Duo could still fool him. He probably was too uptight, but somehow, Wufei thought with an inner sneer, he would learn to take that in stride.

"What did you say to that?"

Heero shrugged easily, eyes still scanning their surroundings. "I said I didn't think you were interested, since you are preferentially heterosexual."

"I guess that shut up him."

"If only."

"These are going to be the longest two weeks since Einstein coined the theory of relativity," Wufei sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"If he annoys you, I'll kick him out." Heero's voice was suddenly harsh, catching Wufei by surprise.

"He's not annoyed me yet. Well, much." Except for the invasion of their space. The disruption of their comfortable routine. The presence of a stranger that demanded thought and understanding and explanations and words.

Two hours later, when Duo melted out of the darkness and started clambering over the fence again, it occurred to Wufei that they could have spiked this running joke completely if they'd just told Duo from the start that...

That what? That he and Heero were together? A couple? Boyfriends? Wufei sneered inwardly. That was why it hadn't even occurred to them. It was their private business, and besides, there were no words to explain what they shared. Having Duo listen to their explanations and getting it all wrong, and looking at the cold and clear-cut thing that lay between them with his cheerful blue eyes, would just make it all too...complicated. The weight of his gaze might disrupt a delicate balance that neither partner acknowledged.

Duo dropped down to their side of the fence with a wide grin. "All done for tonight, guys. Let's get this batmobile back to the cave."

It was past two in the morning, but none of them felt like sleeping. Duo was wound tighter than a spring, with a dangerous edge of eagerness and adrenaline. They sat down at the kitchen counter. Duo chugged back half a bottle of water, wiped his mouth, then jumped off his stool and made a showy bow in Heero's direction.

"Gotta hand it to you, Heero, the security on that place is pretty tight. I only got to the second level."

Wufei schooled his features into neutrality, a trick he'd learned from his partner. Heero's reaction was minute, in fact Duo looked a bit disappointed at the lack of response, positive or negative. But Wufei caught the clench of fingers. Though Heero had set the system up himself, he'd never made it past the first underground level of the complex.

He was visibly itching to ask Duo how he'd managed it, but he didn't actually have to ask. Duo spent the next twenty minutes telling them all about his attempt, the clever way he'd broken through the fire door separating first and second level, and the funny things he noted about whatever guard he happened to dodge.

"Well, he only made it to the second level, there's nothing too sensitive there," Wufei told his partner prosaically as Duo took a breather to chug down the rest of the water. Heero didn't look any happier.

"Yeah, well, I got further than that, thanks to some klutz in the secretarial pool." Duo wiped his mouth with a huge gesture, leaving the smirk in place.

"What do you mean? You said-"

"Physically I only made it to the second level, but here. Found this. I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't supposed to be lying around someone's desk in a fancy red folder screaming 'steal me'. I think they put these to bed on the fourth level at least." Duo produced a paper from his laptop case.

"Maxwell!" Heero snarled. "You weren't supposed to steal anything!"

"I made a photocopy, and it's an object lesson to the person who takes care of paperwork," Duo said, archly. "It has the address and bank details of an undercover agent. Not something that should be left lying around-"

Heero threw back his head and laughed. It was a sound that many mobile suit pilots had heard before they died and it had sped them on their way to hell. Wufei glanced up, startled and Duo actually started to duck behind the counter.

Duo made a sound in his throat, then glared at Wufei, a somewhat more congenial target. "What's so fucking funny? That could have been your address some psycho stole. Or Trowa's. It's not-"

"It's serious, Duo, we don't underestimate that," Wufei murmured, his eyes on Heero, who was staring gloatingly at the paper he'd snatched from the former thief. "But the person in charge of the proper procedures and filing of all sensitive documents is...Let's say, the manager of that department, Anthea Stenhelz, is an old acquaintance of Heero's. She, ah, hasn't endeared herself to either of us. Once your mission is finished, we'll be pleased to-"

"I will tell her," Heero ground out in a voice that even his sparring partner wasn't about to contradict. The smile hovering over his mouth wasn't pleasant.

"Always knew he had a vindictive streak," Duo told Wufei, fingers laced behind his neck and elbows up, a familiar gesture. "All that shit with Zechs..."

"We'll wait until you finish your mission, Duo, since we don't want to alert anyone in Ops until you're done. Then we'll drop it on her. It won't happen again," Wufei concluded crisply. "Still think you can get to the fifth level?"

"Is the Pope catholic?"

"The last Pope died over a hundred years ago."

"Okay, so he's dead, but he's still catholic!"

"I'm going to bed, suddenly I have a headache."

"Poor Wuffers. Want me to come up and massage your temples?"

Heero glanced up from his haze in which he'd probably been thinking of the various ways of laying into Anthea with the evidence, to give Wufei a 'told you so' look. But Wufei could read Duo's tone better. The offer had been entirely sarcastic.

"No thank you, Maxwell, I know you only want to steal my bed out from under me," Wufei shot back, and made it up the stairs before further comeback could occur.


	20. Infiltration, Part II

"Honeyed words and flattering looks seldom speak of strong affection."  
\--- Confucian Saying 

 

"Maxwell."

"Yeah, Wufei?"

"Yuy and I had a mission right before Relena's convention, so we were out of the house for a couple of weeks before going straight to Berlin. Then Yuy got shot, and he's been convalescing ever since. Now he's a lot better, but of course you've been here for, what, a week and a half?"

" ...So?"

"So it's been two months since we were alone and fit in a safe place together, and we're both beginning to feel edgy as a result. Do you think you could get lost for a couple of hours so Yuy and I can have sex?"

Duo simply stared at him, jaw hanging somewhere near his breastbone, then faint crack lines began to appear at his extremities, shivered through his petrified form, and shattered him into a small heap of surprised dust and debris.

Wufei sighed and shifted against his bed. He'd been trying to meditate, but that had been so much harder than usual. It shouldn't be, not for someone with his reserve and focus. In the end he'd pretended he was done and let it rest.

He could hear Heero move around in his own room, two doors down. He'd come back ten minutes ago, sans Maxwell, the latter having apparently opted to make his own way home for some reason.

Heero's chair squeaked and, like a mathematical equation, the computer keys started to clatter as a result. Wufei's mouth tightened. Humph. Well, Yuy was the one getting all tense and bothered, and rather aggressive without a ‘break’. Wufei wasn't as uptight about it, and it wasn't up to him to start something if Yuy could get by without it. Besides Maxwell would probably be home Any Minute Now, and that was quite discouraging. The cheeky ex-pilot was a silent as a shadow even when walking normally, and he had never mastered the art of knocking; it was as foreign to him as the practice of levitation.

Wufei shifted again. He found himself clasping his arms, rubbing them as if he was feeling cold. He grimaced, anger and self-directed contempt twisting his lips. He'd cut his meditations short because, while he was feeling rather cocky that he wasn't as bothered as Heero by the lack of sex in their lives right now, the absence of something else, at once simpler and more fundamental, had suddenly leapt up from behind and stabbed his awareness in the back. It was the little constraint he'd felt right from the start of Duo's visit. The little discomfort, slowly growing. It was so...strange, so unexpected, he hadn't wanted to face it head on just yet. But it was still there; his fingers gripped his upper arms, rubbed unconsciously.

He tore his hands away, more ashamed than if he'd emerged from his thoughts jerking off. Hell, at least that was a normal teenage urge.

He imagined Duo bursting through the door to find him hugging himself.

"Hey Wufei! If you were that lonely, you just needed to tell me!" Cue an enthusiastic arm around the shoulder.

Imaginary Duo found himself catapulted against the wall where he bounced off like a rubber ball before glaring daggers at Wufei.

"Geez. You're one sad bastard, you know?"

"I agree," Wufei sighed, idly looking around for something to toss at the pest. "This weakness is something new. I've gotten soft since the war. Solitude used to be my comfort. And now..."

"Now you need a hug!" Duo beamed at him, from a very safe distance. Wufei wondered if he could wing him with the bedside table. "But by sad bastard, I meant, because you're not even admitting that it's normal to want someone to touch you once in awhile. We're social animals, buddy!"

"No, we're not. We're killers. Conditioned to fight or flee anything that enters our personal space."

"A little factoid that would explain why you're so twisted up inside. But you should at least admit to it, and not call it a weakness. Hell, even the Great Heero Yuy, Perfect Soldier and all around hard-ass extraordinaire, needs a bit of skin-on-skin action from time to time."

Wufei shuddered at the leer he imagined on Duo's face. A part of him was simply mortified; it might be influenced by a certain braided demon, and wearing his face in Wufei's imagination, but that voice, those irreverent words and weak sentiments were in fact coming from a part of his own mind.

"Yuy doesn't need - he gets rid of it efficiently." Heero blended it all in with his carnal urges and left it there, in the rumpled sheets of Wufei's bed.

"Is that so?" Duo asked gnomically. He was suddenly in a lotus position on Wufei's meditation mat, leering like a blasphemous bodhisattva.

"Pf, of course! Yuy and I never touch except when we're having sex." Wufei frowned at the ceiling, trying to banish the image and the question, while his mind, in the form of an imp, reminded him of... 

...The sparring, and boy did he miss that, even more than Heero appeared to. That implied a lot of physical contact, though of the painful variety. Well, painful and yet thrilling too. Ugh, don't go there.

But apart from that-

...The way they occasionally cooked their meal together, Heero chopping the meat and vegetables with ruthless, killer efficiency while Wufei cautiously reached around him to get the rice or noodles...

...Then there were the times they worked on a piece of machinery side by side, or cleaned their weapons at the kitchen counter after going to the shooting range, sharing the rags and oil...

...Or just sat on either side of the couch, an act that shouldn't count but did, because the couch wasn't big enough to allow them to sit together without entering into each other's personal space and for men like them, to allow that was the same as actual physical contact.

That had happened for the first time a couple of months after Wufei had moved in, he remembered, mind wandering. He'd been working on his Asian literature course, a five-year long distance part-time program he'd organized with a Chinese University. Something to occupy his mind during their breaks, an old love. He rather thought Heero disapproved of the occupation, seeing it as a waste of mental resources and time Wufei could spend training. He'd been studying a volume on poetry, and out of the blue and without a word, Heero had sat down on the couch to flip through the latest issue of The Practically Perfect Programmer. Wufei had been so startled he'd almost dropped his book. Heero had glanced up from his article with a 'Yeah, _what?_ ' look on his face and Wufei had decided not to comment. He quickly plunged back into his book though he hadn't studied very well that evening.

Then he'd gotten used to it.

Like he'd gotten used to a few other things that Maxwell had disrupted.

"Hey, don't mind me!" Maxwell was still strutting around in his mind. "You two want to cuddle, go right ahead!"

"No way." Wufei shuddered.

"What? Jeez Louise on a breeze, Wuf, do you really think I'll take one look at you and Heero reading together at either end of the couch and say, 'doggone it, they _are_ boning each other'? I'm pretty smart, but I ain't that astute!"

Wufei grabbed the monkey by the scruff of his neck and hurled him out of his mental room, but the truth was clawing its way back through the door before he could shut it again. For Wufei and Heero, sitting together like that _was_ intimate, it was significant, it was...it was not something either of them would feel comfortable doing with Maxwell anywhere in the entire European Confederacy. Ultimately, it wasn't about what Duo might deduce. In the final equation, Wufei didn't really care if Maxwell knew he and Heero were fucking each other as long as he didn't make any lewd remarks or jump to stupid conclusions. No. The problem was, that the closeness they shared in those moments together was not the affectionate contact of friends or bed mates, but rather it was the delicate negotiation of a no-man's-land, and one of Maxwell's brash comments could disrupt a fine balance, an unspoken agreement between them, that just-...was too private, too...

Wufei ripped his hands away from his arms again. How long was 'Any Minute Now' anyway?!

The banging of the front door closing answered that question. He waited in resignation for Duo to bound up the stairs and pick on one or the other of them. Apparently, the flirting the first day really had been teasing because it had never been repeated; it had been cut off like it was on a switch. But Duo did hate being alone, and he would always join one of his friends in whatever they happened to be doing, even if it was only to sit next to them in silence and work on his own stuff. A week ago Wufei would have sneered at that as being a rather pitiful weakness, but he was honest enough with himself not to go there tonight, considering the thoughts that had been running through his mind just before that door slammed.

No sound of Maxwell leaping up the stairs.

Wufei frowned at the ceiling, then rose silently from the bed, ears pricked. There was no noise from downstairs at all. He was halfway to his door when Heero's opened.

The partners exchanged a puzzled glance on the landing. If there'd been any real danger, Maxwell would have found a way of making some unusual noise - unless silence was unusual enough to count? Heero, Wufei noted with no real surprise, had his gun tucked into the back of his jeans. Wufei made a 'decoy' gesture and walked noisily down the stairs, Heero ghosting behind him, hidden in shadows.

It wasn't Maxwell in the main room. It was Shinigami.

He was sitting on the couch, legs stretched out at shoulder width, hands relaxed on his thighs, eyes thoughtful, wearing a small smile like a half-concealed blade. His usual leather jacket had been replaced by a more formal black trench coat. An innocuous black cap hid his hair and clashed with the less casual attire, but so would the tell-tale braid.

"Hi guys," he said without looking up. "We have something of a situation."

"Were you followed?" Heero asked, coming down the stairs, eyes sweeping the room. "Was that why you walked straight past my car and headed towards the bus station?"

"That was just a precaution. But yeah, as it turned out, I was being followed. I lost him now."

"But you were expecting something like that, weren't you?" Heero grabbed a stool from the counter and sat on it, back rigid, arms crossed over his chest, glaring down at Duo like he was conducting a debriefing.

"Got a lot more than I expected... "

"Are you injured?" Wufei asked, pragmatically. He couldn't see any traces of a struggle, but Duo would have hidden any such signs before taking the bus. Though there shouldn't have been any struggle. The meeting should have been routine, and fairly safe.

After two more attempts at a break-in that had only gotten him as far as the third level, Duo had decided to 'get serious'. He'd done what a terrorist or professional thief would be expected to do; he contacted the Brussels underworld to get in touch with organized crime, to try to buy the information he needed. Every big city had small groups of people whose only brush with illegality was gathering information on tempting targets that they could then sell to interested parties. For a price, they could provide floor-plans, guard details, security system codes. They would go through garbage cans looking for passwords on pieces of paper - a surprisingly successful way of obtaining them. They would pay people working in security firms, janitorial staff, building inspectors and small-time employees for anything they couldn't literally dig out of the trash.

"I barely had time to say 'Preventer's HQ Special Division', they were talking price already. A big price. 'Do you want a Taurus or two with that' size of price," Duo said, eyes still terribly thoughtful, ignoring Wufei's question. "Way more than I expected them to ask; I had chump change. I thought they'd have a few measly floor plans and the name of the colonel's pet dog that would give me access to the private PC where he keeps his porn. Caught me a bit off guard, but fortunately I have, ah, accounts. They had enough money in them to impress the boss himself." 

Heero and Wufei nodded. They had similar accounts. They never used them; it was blood money hacked from the worst of OZ's specials black ops bank accounts. But they didn't feel like giving it back to whatever politician or organization that would take a cut out of it. The dividends went to charities. The bulk was kept in case they ever had to go underground again; they were all too paranoid to fully trust in the new peace without leaving some kind of wiggle room. They'd destroyed their Gundams, that was as big an act of faith as anyone could ask for.

"I flashed some sums around. We started negotiating. I asked to get a sampler of the goods. So he showed me what I could buy. Heero... " Duo slowly looked up. "They have it all. Every system password, every blue-print, every goddamn wire junction, and the entire guard detail and patrols. They could fucking waltz in there tomorrow."

"How?" One word, cold as the slopes of Hades.

"I don't know, mate. They were leery of me. Not as much as they should be, but pretty close. Asked me very pointed question about what organization I worked for, what my aims were - funny, actually, I think they only wanted to make sure I wasn't trying to make a hit on you two. Our warning scared a lot of roaches under the floorboard of society." Duo absently reached for his cap, jerked it off and let his braid coil across one shoulder. "I fed them a line. I called Quatre and Une on the bus back, to make sure as much of the cover details can be set up -"

"You're going back in?" Wufei sunk down on the other end of the couch.

"I have to. They had everything. They've got some source, or something...and if nothing else we need to know who they sold this info to. Heero can play merry havoc with the codes and some of the landline securities, and we can change guard patrols, but Ops is still pretty open. I chatted with one of them afterwards. Elsabeth, lovely woman. Very open." Duo smiled like a wolf and Wufei found himself nodding in memory of the Maxwell charm in action. "She hinted that maybe I should save my money, that there might be something in the works that could queer my info before I could use it." Heero leaned forward on the stool, eyes like diamond drills. "I gotta go back and see what I can fish out. I've got an opening to return. Considering the sum involved, I said I had to go back to my buyers to get their opinion. I have an appointment in two days' time to close the deal - according to Elsa, nothing will blow up before then."

"How will you get the information you need?" Heero asked quietly.

"I'll have to get back to you on that," Duo answered, standing in a smooth black blur and spinning to look back at the toolshed. "I need one of your bikes."

"Take mine," Wufei said. "Yuy's always tinkering with his." A low grumble didn't contradict him so much as tell him to mind his own business, but he and Duo ignored it. "Keys are in the ignition already."

"K. I'll be back. Probably in less than an hour. Maybe more. Maybe not until tomorrow."

"Do you need backup?"

"Where I'm going, you two dames would stand out like a couple of nuns in a brothel. You'd be more a liability than a help, sorry." Duo leered over his shoulder, striding towards the bike. "But keep shifts on Yuy's cell. If I need a hand, I'll holler so loud all of Brussels will hear me."

"You do that," Wufei said severely, knowing that things would have to be almost terminal before Duo actually made good on it. There was the screech of the garage door opening, the grumble of Wufei's bike starting, and the thump of Heero's feet up the stairs.

Wufei followed slowly after closing the garage door behind the black-clad figure. He knocked on Heero's door and opened it without waiting for the grunt.

"Yuy, I'll take tonight's shift. Give me your cell phone."

"No." Heero was already at his desk, fingers flying over the keyboard, eyes like pits in the darkness only broken by the dubious light of his screen, which was covered in DOS windows. "I have it."

"You don't have it, Yuy, you only have eighty percent of it," Wufei sneered. "That's how much of your top fighting capability you said you had when I asked you yesterday. If Duo needs backup, I'll take it."

"I can handle it."

"Don't be a pig-headed-"

"I need to work on this," Heero snapped, eyes still glued to the screen. "You go sleep so you can take a shift tomorrow."

"Maxwell probably won't have to go out tomorrow. The criminal world is rather notorious about sleeping in very late. And you can't reinforce security, you might blow Maxwell's cover, it's thin enough as it is."

"I'm not reinforcing anything. I'm setting shepherd programs on vital functions, so that if anyone disrupts them, I'll be alerted. Then I'm running a thorough diagnostic to verify nothing has slipped in already, and then I'm-"

"Bed, Yuy."

That got him a murderous glare before Heero turned back to the screen. Wufei took one weighing look at the stiff, unrelenting shoulders. There were times he could argue with Heero - they'd had some spectacular fights in the past eight months, some ending up on the dojo floor - and there were times he had to bend like the willow. He ended up cat-napping on Heero's bunk bed, lulled by the clicking of keys, on alert for a call from Duo. But Heero's cell phone stayed mute.

Duo showed up the next day and told them - with typical Shinigami jubilation - that he had The Plan.

 

 

"This is a very stupid plan," Wufei grumbled. He'd been trying not to, but seeing Heero grimace as he tightened the straps on his flak jacket had prompted the words.

Heero ignored him. Of course.

"You are in no condition to abseil down anything, Yuy."

Silence. Of the stubborn, pig-headed, masochistic variety.

Wufei wondered if he could get away with clocking Heero on the jaw and locking him in the trunk of the car. But Heero wasn't quite impaired enough for that. And even if, by a staggering bit of luck, Wufei managed it anyway, Heero would kill him afterwards, and that would be rather tiresome.

In his ear, Duo was flirting with someone, probably the Elsa woman, or maybe someone else. His voice was metallic and flat through the earpiece. The meeting was in ten minutes. They had to be in place by then.

Both Heero and Wufei had insisted that Duo wire up. He could be open about it; since he had access codes to an account with a considerable sum in it on his person, he was perfectly in his right to come with backup and a way to holler for help. There should be no reason for the information brokers to be suspicious. Duo's false credentials had been probed, a light background check had been run on him, but Une, who was handling things herself, didn't think they had anything to make them suspicious.

Wufei didn't like it. Because no-one knew where the potential leak was coming from, in Ops or from another Preventer division, they couldn't involve their usual surveillance staff, they couldn't have Sanji's squad around the corner for backup, they couldn't even do any of this legally. If they were caught or killed...well, Une said it would be messy, and that was probably an understatement. They had to do it alone and they had to do it right. Which was why Heero had insisted on coming along, though Wufei had pointed out several times that he could have gone in on his own.

Two rooftop scrambles later they were at the elevator shaft and disabling the simple security system on it. The brokers were not a dangerous target. They tried to keep a low and fairly clean profile, so they didn't have an army of trigger-happy guards or high level alarms for the partners to run into. This was minimal risk, Wufei reminded himself for the tenth time as he watched Heero stretch up and hook a pulley over one of the elevator's support joists. He'd have offered to do it except that he didn't feel like getting roasted right before a mission, plus if Heero couldn't easily reach that high, Wufei would have a very good reason to tell him to go sit in the car.

The plan was simple. Duo was meeting with the boss in the conference room of the building, a trading firm which was the brokers' cover. While he was distracting the boss, Heero and Wufei would discreetly break into the man's office and hack into an offline, heavily secured computer. The underworld scuttlebutt had informed Duo that this was the only place the man kept the details of his shadier business deals.

Duo had started with the preliminary civilities - Wufei heard the clink and gurgle of drinks being poured - when Heero and Wufei found the office, after letting themselves down the elevator shaft. Security was average, a joke compared to an OZ base. Duo had done his work well when he'd obtained the details of their objective; they had floor plans and a rough idea of the security arrangements.

The office was a twelve by twenty foot box, with very few attempts at decoration. It was the boss's real office, not the showroom he took customers to. It had a pyramid of beer cans in the corner, the bottom layers dull with dust, and several PCs on a metal table with a few wheeled chairs in front. There were no windows, as they were deep inside the building, on the second floor near the back. Blueprints and charts with coded titles pinned to them decorated the walls. In the darkness of the room, with the only illumination provided by the dim light from the monitor screens, Wufei couldn't make out many details. There were a few children's drawings as well, provided by the boss's kids or someone else's. A very impressive safe lurked in one corner, gunmetal gray and heavy, and fortunately not their objective. The big desk was cheap and solid with wood pattern sidings. Heero's target was underneath it.

Wufei stood near one of two doors, listening out, while Heero hooked a small beam torch to his ear and picked the lock on the PC's casing. There were a few noises in the hallway outside; unlike a legit firm, most of the brokers' business was done in the evening or at night, with people passing by to check on last minute changes in security or picking up false keys at all hours. Wufei filtered the noises, listening for anything that didn't belong, occasionally glancing at Heero over his shoulder and checking his progress. Heero had the computer's case popped and was installing a small receiver in case they couldn't hack into the machine in the hour or so Maxwell could buy them, or they were interrupted. It would allow them to hack the PC later from outside, as long as the tampering was not detected. Next time Wufei looked, Heero had closed the case and was testing his receiver on his laptop. Then his fingers were caressing keys on the laptop connected to the PC, running hacking programs, looking for a weakness.

Another part of Wufei's concentration was on Duo and the boss negotiating through the earpiece. This seemed to involve a lot of details and piddling price reductions and such. All rather tedious, but it gave them time. Wufei heard a soft grunt from Heero as his partner broke through a significant barrier. Movement down the hallways, several steps, fading away. Wufei glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes. Making good time so far.

// ...I'm not really interested in this code, though. You sure we can't knock a bit off the price? Why should I pay ten grand to get into a room I don't give a fuck about?// Duo's voice drawled. There was a rubbing sound. Duo was scratching his ear, idly.

Wufei was instantly on alert, and he heard the chatter of keys behind him stop. The scratches were sending slight peaks of static through their earpieces. A wartime code. 'Trgt stall'

Their target was stalling? Wufei frowned back at Heero, wondering if he'd heard that correctly. Maybe he'd misunderstood - Duo was the one who was stalling, trying to give them as much time as possible before he broke off negotiations and left, and the boss and his bodyguards returned to the office. But that was the plan, so Duo would not spam the lines with something they already knew. And Duo was adept at reading a situation of this type, his past as a fence and a thief had given him a fine sixth sense for dealing with criminals, and sensing unusual situations...like a trap. Wufei gripped the hilt of the Luger and listened carefully. There were steps down the hallway again, still nothing downright alarming, but...

He glanced at Heero who was glaring at the machine in front of him with a fair amount of aggravation. Before Heero even muttered, "Five minutes", Wufei knew he was close but not quite there yet.

Fuzzy and distant: // ...this code is in fact linked to camera security, Mr Hellsmith. If you don't get a man in here, how will you protect someone infiltrating the south sector?//

//You're not listening, Harold. I don't give a shit about the south sector.// Duo pointed out. Scratch scritch. 'Abort.'

Heero immediately started to pack his laptop and clean up the desk. But it was too late.

"Yuy," Wufei breathed, plastering himself to the wall near the door. The random footsteps weren't random anymore. Heero had ducked under the desk and drawn his Glock in one smooth movement just as the far door, the one they'd jimmied shut, was forced open. Wufei's door was thrown open at the same time. The first man through was punched unconscious before he even saw his attacker, the second one went down with a fist in the face that sent him hurling back into the far wall of the hallway. Shots behind him - Wufei ducked out the door, to avoid presenting a target. Startled cries. He was right among the attackers, who couldn't fire. One man tried to grab him, pinion his arms. A heel back in the groin took care of him. Arms released, he sent a fist crashing into another's gut, then a kick scythed the gun out of a third one's hand before he could fire, breaking his wrist. Inertia slammed Wufei against the wall. He tensed ready to propel himself towards his next target-

Crunch! A bullet cratered the plaster right next to his head. Wufei froze.

"That's right. Stand still and drop the gun," the man grunted. One of the attackers from the other door. They'd outflanked Heero. Damn.

Wufei hesitated, but his options were rather limited, with one of his other attackers, grimacing through the pain of a punch in the gut, scooping up his gun and aiming as well. The other two men were either unconscious or wishing they were, but two guns...He slowly put his hands up after dropping the Luger.

// ...you see, Mr Hellsmith - we'll pretend that's your name - our previous buyers for this information were rather particular about retaining exclusive rights to it.// The broker's voice sounded sincerely apologetic. Wufei realized that Duo must have been cornered as well. Double damn.

//Then why'd you try to sell it to me?// Duo's voice was scornful.

//Ah, well, business...// The broker coughed. //Actually, they wouldn't have minded me selling you parts of it, but they did insist on running their own background checks on you. Turns out you don't quite add up to what you claimed to be. Mr...Hellsmith.// From the slightly hesitation and the turn of phrase, Wufei realized that no-one knew who they were yet, just that they were trouble.

The man gestured at Wufei with his gun. The Preventer tensed, there had been a slight opening - one that would have gotten him severely injured, but an opening nonetheless. But he decided to see what Heero's situation was, before trying anything. They'd make a better last-ditch attempt in concert. If Heero was still alive.

//So that's who these goons are?// Duo purred. //I didn't think muscle men were your usual style.//

Great. So these were the terrorists or whatever who were trying to break into Ops in the first place. The broker must have warned them that someone was trying to acquire the same information that they had bought, and they'd been just that bit more paranoid. Wufei had been hoping to meet these people, but in slightly better circumstances.

Heero was on his knees near the desk, hands on his head, Glock dropped a few feet away. The pose gave Wufei one single moment of a very nasty flashback that made him stumble a step. The desk was pocked with bullet marks, some of which had gone through the siding. Heero in top form would have surged out from under that desk like death incarnate, but in his present condition, his chances had been too slim. The soldier was coldly pragmatic about these things, unlike Wufei, whose pride was torturing him for the surrender. Heero was dispassionately awaiting his chance...and keeping one eye on the laptop, which was still running programs to break into the broker's PC and download the data they were looking for. Trust Heero to keep his mind on the mission; if they managed to break out of this situation, Heero would drag that laptop out of there even if he had to leave Wufei behind to do so.

"Get them out. Apply first aid to those who are still alive. Get them into the truck and drive them back to base for treatment. We'll follow in the van."

A voice of authority. Wufei glanced away from the nearby men he was silently planning to kill. A woman had come through the door. She was tall, bulky without being fat, with short-cropped brown hair and the pale face of a colony citizen. She was wearing a flack jacket and fatigues, indistinguishable from the other attackers, but there was no doubt she was in command. Her eyes were hard and weighing as she watched two men start to drag the wounded and dead away. She was judging how much her force had been reduced, rather than worrying about injured comrades, though the pinch of her mouth indicated that consideration would come when she allowed it to, later.

That same judging stare was directed first at Wufei, then lingered on Heero.

"I'd ask you to tell me who you are and who you work for, but I just know you're going to be tedious about this and require me to torture the information out of you." Her voice was softer and more cultured than when she'd been barking orders.

"I apologize for the inconvenience," Wufei murmured. Heero just knelt like a votary statue, completely unmoved.

She flashed Wufei a hard smile. "Oh, the inconvenience will be all yours, trust me. Your friend will be joining us shortly-"

"Friend?" Wufei frowned. He'd managed to shake loose and crush his earpiece when being hustled into the room; they might not have anything to connect them with Duo. Except for the coincidence of their presence here. Which, from the woman's sneer, was quite enough.

"Once he gets here, we'll go for a drive. A long one. And-"

Some of her men were amateurs. The mistake was small in appearance but significant, and both Heero and Wufei spotted it at once and moved instantly, on instinct. The two men carrying out the last of Heero's victims - their Uzis hanging from their straps on their backs to leave their hands free - moved in front of the last two men on the far side of the room holding Heero at gunpoint.

Hands still held high, Wufei hurled himself back bodily into the man holding a gun to his head. Caught off guard, the taller man oof-ed and folded around Wufei's elbow that had come crashing down into his gut. Wufei spun and shoved the man at the one behind them, who was pointing the machine gun but not firing with his friend in the way. Wufei grabbed the FAMAS from his first target's shoulder as he hurled him away, spinning the heavy assault rifle around. The second man had twisted away from his comrade's falling body, gun swinging too wildly to compensate - Wufei fired point blank into his target's gut. The bullets crashed into his flak jacket and threw him against the wall. Wufei spun before the man, retching blood, hit the floor. He threw himself forward, angling away from a weapon firing at him. His attacker went down in a flail of limbs, downed by a shot from Heero's side of the office.

The room fell still again, heavy with the echoes of gunshots and the smell of cordite. Five people were left standing and in a position to fire. Heero was crouched against the side of the desk, Glock back in his hand and pointing at the attackers' leader. She had a Kimber out of its holster and aimed at Heero's head. Near her, two men had weapons directed at Wufei, who was also aiming at their boss, though a slight change of angle would strafe them too. His hand tightened on the unfamiliar stocky grip. The adrenaline sang in his veins, tingled in his finger on the trigger which was thicker than his Luger's, a soldier's weapon.

"Just what do you hope to achieve?" the woman snarled. The Kimber was not trembling in the slightest. Basic military training, Wufei thought, and guts galore. Colonist? OZ? At this point he didn't really care. "I have more men coming, and we outgun you already."

Wufei slowly twisted against the wall, presenting as small a target as possible while getting ready to lunge to one side or the other. The men aiming at him looked a whole lot less sure than their boss. They were probably professional soldiers. Wufei hadn't been keeping count, but he knew their forces had been seriously reduced in the last ten minutes. Men they knew and fought alongside, mowed down by the two youths now armed again and showing no signs of hesitation.

"Drop your weapons." Heero's voice was as amiable as a computer's.

"Which part of 'outgunned' did you not understand?" The woman grinned without humor.

"The bit where your head explodes even if your men manage to shoot my partner - not that they have a chance," Heero countered. If he was at all concerned by the Kimber pointing at a spot between his eyes, he gave no indications, even to Wufei. A grimace thinned the latter's lips. One day really soon, he'd have to have a talk with Heero about suicidal attitudes. Now that would be a fun argument.

Wufei breathed in and out, centering himself. Heero was right; numbers meant nothing, the advantage was theirs. They would kill all three people in this room. But one or both partners would be injured or killed doing so, probably Wufei considering the two guns aimed at him. Even with a flak jacket. He readied himself, preparing himself mentally for the pain, the shock of the bullet strike, so that it would not stop him from doing his duty in those few seconds that mattered. After that, it was in the gods' - and Heero's - hands.

"Look, kid," the leader said curtly, still not grasping the standoff they were in. "In this room alone we have three guns for two and my - "

The shot ripped the air. The ominous ratchet of an expelled cartridge and the smooth chambering of the next shell followed while the bang still echoed.

"Better review your math, darling. Tell your last soldier to stop pointing his cannon at my buddy or I get really mean." The voice cut over the squealing yammer of one of the men who'd been holding Wufei at gun point. The weapon was on the floor, as was most of the man's hand. He was curled around the remaining ragged stump, grunting in time with the spurts of blood.

The woman had flinched and twitched her gun towards the source of the shot. A fatal mistake a pro would not have made. She froze as Heero surged forward, dodging to put her between himself and the last gunman. The Glock was suddenly three feet from her head. Wufei was now aiming at the last attacker. But his target wasn't looking his way; he was staring at the figure that had appeared in the gloom of the still-dark office, illuminated by the light cutting in from the hallway.

There were few sights quite so terrifying up close as Shinigami with a pump-action 12 gauge shotgun and a grievance. Even the woman's eyes were flicking away from the Glock aimed at her head to stare at the half-smile that looked as deadly as the gun's barrel. The man behind her let the gun slip from numb fingers.

"Right. In case you were wondering, the reinforcements pouring down the hallway turned out to be only little ol' me," Duo purred. Wufei chanced a glance at him. From the slightly thick way Duo was talking, Wufei wasn't surprised to see a bruise on his friend's jaw, already starting to swell and change color. If he was injured anywhere else, he didn't show it.

The tension of the tableau was broken by Heero prosaically turning away and putting his Glock next to the laptop, to finish downloading the data, which was at least partially useless now. There would be other interesting tidbits in there, Wufei thought with resignation, making sure the two remaining perpetrators didn't try anything funny. The only difficult bit now was what to do with these people, this having hardly been the most legal of ventures to begin with.

 

 

In, out, around, pull, in, out, around, clip, done.

"There we go. All finished!" Duo exclaimed as the last stitch went in, apparently no longer able to bear the silence. Since Wufei was doing the stitching and Duo was the one being stitched, his remark was rather out of place, but Wufei made no comment. He could practically taste the adrenaline roiling off his friend.

"It won't be as neat as Trowa's stitches." Wufei stripped off the surgical gloves. "Keep the ice pack against your face," he added as Duo bent to look at the sutures.

"Yeah, Tro's the best! Good thing, or Heero would look like a Frankenstein!" The man in question sat at the counter running through the acquired data, and he ignored the comment.

"You mean Frankenstein's monster-" Wufei gave up. "Sorry we couldn't take you to the Ops clinic. We could have driven you to a hospital -"

"I'd rather not leave a trace in Brussels, I told you. Huh, twelve stitches. You know, we'll end our careers looking like a tic-tac-toe board."

Wufei passed a careful finger around the straight gash, now stitched. "That was a close call." It was over Duo's shoulder. One inch downward-

"Yeah well..." Duo shrugged in a way that Wufei would not have considered appropriate for his stitches. Then he lunged.

"Max- get the hell off!"

"Geez, you guys are so unhuggable! We made it out alive, we beat the bad guys, you just stitched me up like a regular Florence Nightingale, I thought that deserved a hug." From the cheeky way Duo was grinning, he was perfectly well aware what reaction he was going to get. Oh yes, Duo Maxwell was spoiling for a fight.

"Try to get some rest, Duo," Wufei grunted, putting their medical kit away. Neither of the partners were more than bruised.

He didn't have much hope Duo would follow his advice; he himself would not sleep for a while. He was planning to meditate, bring the bloodlust and the battle fever under control. If only-...but even if Maxwell weren't here, Heero was busy sifting through the data. They'd both be in Ops tomorrow, to take over the interrogation of the culprits from Sam. They probably wouldn't be able to keep them beyond their legal forty-eight hours of preventive detention. They had no proof, no case, at least none that they could admit to after illegally breaking into a building and stealing the data. But the terrorists didn't know that. Wufei felt pretty sure one or the other would spill most of what they needed to know. Identification and flagging would insure this cell wouldn't be much of a problem in the future. Wufei discovered that he wasn't even that curious to know what cause they were supporting. At the heart of the matter, it was always the same. A group who thought they'd been shortchanged by the peace, one way or another, and decided that they would make someone - anyone - _everyone_ pay.

They'd both be busy for the full forty-eight hours. Then-...

"So we owe you a favor now. Another favor." Wufei smiled tightly at Duo. "Feel free to collect any time. But I guess you want to get back to L2 now."

Duo had been cleaning his gun with a surfeit of nervous energy. He glanced up and grinned.

"No way, man. Duo Maxwell is not a quitter."

"...Quitter? I don't-"

"I still have to break into Ops! Of course, now I don't have a good floorplan, and I doubt I'll get one. But hey, that's okay, I'll go in slow and easy. Probably take me an extra week or so."

"You don't have to, Duo." Wufei tried to keep the edge of hysteria from his voice. At the counter, Heero had stiffened. "Besides, Yuy is going to rewire and rebuild the entire security system, so that will change everything you've scouted out so far."

"Hell, that's right!" The charger slid into the pistol with a slick metallic noise. "Make it two extra weeks then!"

Wufei threw a brief, aghast look at his partner. Heero’s eyes were wide and he looked like he was about to bang his head on the counter. Duo wasn't that unpleasant to live with, and he was a great ally, but-...

Duo's eyes were turned inward and pensive when Wufei turned back to him. It was an unusual expression for Duo. Something serious must have occurred to him, or possibly caught him off guard.

"Then again..." Duo scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Heero? How long will it take you to rewire everything?"

"We need to go through the data. It could take a while."

"Hmm, tell you what, guys. I'll give you a rain-check. Why don't you interrogate the baddies until they're on their knees and confessing all their sins. I'm going to hire a rental car and go see the sights in Brussels. Then when you're done, you can take me out for a wild night on the town, after which I will leave you two solitary wolves to your tundra. We can try this break-in thing in another year, when the guards have gotten into their routine and all. What do you say?"

Forty eight hours? No problem, Wufei thought, even as his skin seemed to ache for...something. Probably sex. Well, most certainly sex. He didn't need a touch, that was stupid and weak, and besides, Duo had hugged him and he'd brushed him off, as usual.

Forty eight hours. And then the house would be theirs again. Home. Safe. No more masks except the ones they chose to wear.

 

 

Wufei said his goodbyes to Duo while the man was still packing and went up to his room, strategically avoiding the more exuberant farewell. He tried to meditate, but the noises from the shop floor, Duo's enthusiastic last words to a fairly silent Heero, were distracting. Actually that described the whole two weeks of Duo's visit. Not unpleasant, or overly imposing, or hugely fun either. Distracting. Finally the front door closed, and the voices were outside.

Giving up his attempts to meditate, Wufei went to stand by the window, flicking the slats of his venetian blinds up. Duo was talking while putting his duffel in the rental's trunk. He was grinning and spinning and moving. Heero was a contrast of forbidding stillness beside him. Night was falling fast. Duo had finally given up on the 'wild night on the town' plan and was catching the red-eye back to the colonies.

Wufei grinned, seeing it coming even if Heero didn't; the twirl, braid flying, the rapid step, almost feinting to one side then the other, and just as Heero stiffened in surprise-...the hug! Wufei snickered as Heero went as stiff as a board while Duo held the hug the exact amount of time he could get away with without incurring a shove, then leapt back with a smug grin. Maxwell...Wufei shook his head in something like affectionate annoyance or disgruntled admiration, he wasn't sure which anymore.

He let the slat drop, then fiddled with the string. Damn, it must have knotted in the mechanism again; the last slat was slanted and wouldn't quite close. Strange, it had been fine this morning when he and Heero had gone to work. They'd given the interrogations one last shot before releasing the disbelieving terrorists into a world where their every move would be carefully monitored and any future illegal activity, even jay-walking, would see them roped in to pay for their crimes. Wufei fiddled with the cord again, then shrugged. Breaking a terrorist plot before it even hatched was one thing but this? He would investigate the mystery of life that was venetian blinds tomorrow. Right now he wanted to relax, fully, for the first time in two weeks.

The silence of the house beckoned to him. He picked up his book, slipped on his glasses, and walked downstairs. The space seemed to wrap around him, silent, peaceful, all theirs again. Safe. Wufei lounged on the couch, flipped open his book, drank in the silence before he started to read. He heard the slam of a car door outside, distant and somehow enriching the silence rather than disturbing it. He didn't pay any attention to the well-known steps at the door, then moving through the room; they were as familiar as his own. Wufei turned a page. Deep within him there was the slight hope that Heero might sit down on the other end of the couch, a tentative resumption of one of their rituals he'd grown rather used to.

The book was ripped out of his hands. Wufei started, fingers tingling. He opened his mouth but found himself squashed against the couch with a hard mouth gagging his before he could even shout, a hand capturing his head.

Heero freed Wufei's mouth to tug the glasses off his nose before they scored his cheekbone again, and their owner had the time to protest.

"Mm- what the- I was reading, Yuy!" Wufei snarled, shoving his partner away. A ball of very different emotions made way for a more familiar anger. He didn't appreciate being interrupted during his relaxation, or feeling like he was there for Yuy's convenience when the latter had an itch he couldn't scratch by himself.

"I know." Heero's voice was rough and husky and sent vibrations right down to the pit of Wufei's stomach via the skin of his neck. "Wouldn't normally while you're reading. Won't again. Just this once." The hot whisper brushed Wufei's skin, skittering over the mark left by Heero's mouth. Wufei realized that the hands that had been shoving Heero away were now clutching his partner's shirt. The fury nipped at him again.

"Get off, Yuy!" he growled, though his damned hands, which could normally chop through an inch of wooden plank, refused to do more than shove a very little bit. "I don't appreciate being jumped on! I finally have time to read in peace without being interrup-hnn..."

Heero had grabbed the hand that had finally started to push in earnest, and was kneading it between his strong fingers, almost to the edge of pain, pressing against bone, sending shudders down Wufei's spine. The other fingers rubbed at the base of his skull, snagging and loosening his hair a little, attacking the knot of tension that they frequently found there. Damn it! Wufei fumed. This wasn't fair! Yuy knew all his weak spots!

Still manipulating the bones of Wufei's long, strong fingers and palm, Heero slowly bent his head and mouthed the sensitive little patch of skin near the wrist. Blue eyes were fixed on Wufei, unembarrassed, incandescent with lust, and still the hard, analytical eyes of a tactician who was feeling out the effects of his strategies to get what he wanted. Wufei was about to remove that expression the hard way when the other hand dropped from his neck and slipped between his thighs, thumb working the muscles, fingers, more delicate, ghosting over the skin beneath the cloth. Wufei was suddenly one long, rippling shudder. But his glare was still stubborn. The mouth against the pulse in his wrist curved a bit, in amusement and something like admiration. The fingers between his legs started to linger on his hardening cock, which, like the rest of Wufei's rebellious body, was listening to its own desires.

"I don't...appreciate..." Wufei kept forgetting what he was trying to say. He could barely hear his own voice through the rush of blood in his ears. Yuy wasn't normally this pushy. The weeks of need had built up. In both of them. Wufei's breath hitched as a delicate tongue, a counterpoint to the fingers' hard manipulation, darted out and slowly drew a shiver of sensation from his wrist to the root of his thumb. Why...why was he saying no again?

"Oh, ok-hey!" Wufei gasped as Heero hauled him from the couch and towards the stairs before the second syllable was out. Likely the only thing that was keeping Heero from scooping his partner up and carrying him to the bedroom was the sure knowledge that Wufei would kick his ass if he dared to.

They crashed, bodies fused, into the door of the study at the top of the stairs, hands digging wildly through clothes, pressing flesh, burning along skin. Wufei managed to take a step towards his bedroom. Heero growled deep in his throat at the loss of the warmth between them and followed, pressing his body against his partner's, crushing him against the wall. They stumbled a few more steps, while Heero's hands slipped into Wufei's loose pants, fingers firm on his hipbones, his ass. Wufei's hand slammed blindly against the doorknob before he managed to turn it, his mouth caught on the pulse in Heero's neck, the life and passion there hammering to burst free. The steel body shivered beneath his mouth; Heero also had weaknesses. Wufei tried to use every one of them at once, and barely felt the door open behind them. Heero groaned, one hand caught on the doorjamb to stop them from falling on the floor as the door swung wide.

Heero's hand was on his ass again as they stumbled into the room. This was a familiar opening gambit and Wufei knew where this was going. He exploded, chopping Heero's arm away, his other hand shoving his partner towards the bed.

"Goddamn it, Heero Yuy! You're the one who asked him here, who kept him here two weeks, you're the one who can't wait, so you're damn well going to be on the bottom!" Wufei shouted into startled blue eyes.

A feral growl in response, face darkening, then a minimal shrug as Heero let himself fall bonelessly backwards onto the bed, surrender unspoken. Wufei marched up, opened the bedside table drawer and barely had time to switch on the bedside lamp and find the lube before two strong hands grabbed him and dragged him onto the bed. Cloth creaked under strain, threads stretched as Heero's hands, too rough, tore off Wufei's shirt. Wufei managed to keep a hold on the lube, barely. He wriggled out of his pants himself, before those rough hands could, in their hurry, accidentally rip off something he might need later on. Heero had fastened himself on to his chest, biting his collarbone, a firm hand warm on Wufei's erection. Wufei groaned and struggled to get his partner out of his clothes despite the awkward position. Heero was ignoring his prods and wouldn't back off.

Heero moved, rolling Wufei onto his back, hands greedy, hips thrusting. Wufei squirmed - both men gasped and panted when the friction rippled pleasure through them. Heero's grasp weakened and Wufei threw him off, shoving him towards the wall and following immediately. Heero slammed his hand back against the wall for leverage and Wufei was on his back again with Heero's full weight on him before he could even gasp. 

The lube was ripped from his hands. Wufei coiled, ready to move. To open it, Heero would need both hands on the screw cap. Heero grinned savagely an inch above his face, eyes challenging and hard. A hand delicately dropped the nearly full tube of lube on the bedside table - Wufei's eyebrows shot up in surprise - then smashed down, fist nearly breaking the bedside table beneath it. The tube burst at the seams and Heero smirked triumphantly, not once looking away from Wufei as his fingers scooped up the mess. Wufei was about to shout in pure fury when the gelled hand dropped swiftly to his cock. The shock of sensation - cold - and the movement - grasp, twist, curl - sent shudders through him, and his back arched off the bed to collide with the rock that was his partner above him. Wufei strangled the moan before it could erupt and let Heero lube his erection. His right hand was caught under Heero's body, his left hand couldn't reach much - his breath was tearing through his lungs and Heero's pants were feathering the skin of his throat as his head rolled back against the pillow displaced by their violence.

Can't let him - he'll injure himself - fragments of thought flew through Wufei's mind like shrapnel, as the busy hand finished spreading the gel over his cock. Wufei lay still until Heero lifted himself to move over him. Blue eyes gleamed, anticipating the pain of thrusting himself down, riding Wufei and controlling their savage screwing; the act reaching deep down into those dark corners of Heero's mind that no one else knew about, and that he rarely, if ever, let out. But Wufei knew them intimately. He writhed at the slide of muscles against his. He was excited - and a bit pissed off at being top only in the most technical of terms. But the practical part of him clung to rationality, reminding him that Heero was still injured. He waited until the single instant when Heero's balance was compromised and _shoved_. His whole body bucked and thrust upwards. Heero tried to stay on top, twisting. Wufei rode the movement, slipping around him, clamping onto Heero's back, rolling them onto their sides.

Legs tangled and blocked, and Wufei tightened his arm around Heero's chest with all his considerable strength. Heero squirmed but no longer had any leverage now that they were pressed together, chest to back. The soldier snarled and then shuddered once, violently, as Wufei's freed hand dropped to Heero's previously unattended erection.

"Calm down," Wufei ground out, trying to get his breath back. A low rumble from the chest beneath his arm. The body against his still a coil of unreleased violence. "Calm down. Don't stress your back."

Heero gasped out a few choice words about his back.

Wufei ignored him, leaned over to dip his fingers in the mess of gel from the smashed tube. "We've not done this in two months. If you want to be able to sit down tomorrow, we do it my way," he said firmly. He felt Heero try to twist around a bit, the movements less aggressive, but Wufei kept him pinned, legs tangled, as he slid his hands down Heero's ass. The resistance ceased as he started to spread the lube, around, slipping inside, as slowly as he could when he was burning to bury himself into the body pushing back against his, moving against his chest. Heero arched and rubbed himself against the other’s body. Wufei increased the speed of his preparation before he got so excited that he wouldn't be able to do this; and he wanted this. He wanted to plunge into his partner, get as close as was physically possible.

Still, Wufei took his time. He didn't want to injure Heero. And, deep inside, where reason and logic did not reach, he knew where Heero's attempt to get savagely screwed was coming from. But a quick fuck wouldn't satisfy the need. Wufei kept his chest pressed against Heero's back, his arms still firm around the hard chest, skin caressing skin. Heero was no longer fighting the hold, though he bucked and gasped when Wufei finally pushed his way in. The movement was slow to start with, trying to find the rhythm they remembered, the one that met all needs...

 

\---

The light of Wufei's bedside lamp was switched on, throwing thin lines of gold through the slats of the blinds, a wider gap shining at the bottom. The walls of the workshop reflected the light of the streetlights nearby, except for one dark patch near the window.

The black shape of a man was hanging, seemingly weightless, from his fingertips on the windowsill; one foot was wedged against the drainpipe, while the other had found purchase against a line of decorative brick-work that ran along the front of the workshop.

The figure pulled himself up effortlessly by the fingertips, one foot moving to gain friction purchase against the wall in total silence, until his eyes were level with the bright triangle of light at the edge of the window.

Almost immediately, the figure ducked down to his previous position and hung there, completely motionless for a minute or two. No sign came from within the building that he'd been noticed, though something thumped against the wall inside. Slowly the arms, slender yet deceptively strong, flexed almost in slow motion and brought the eyes back to their previous position to peek through the slats. This time the figure stayed there for a few seconds before lowering himself again.

The foot against the drainpipe moved as the figure prepared to descend to ground level, but no actual movement followed. He hung there like a spider, apparently caught in indecision, head leaning one way, then another, following an internal argument.

Finally a very slow, careful flex of the arms brought him up smoothly once more to the level of the crack in the slats. This time the figure stayed in place with almost casual upper body strength and endurance, watching for several minutes. Then, still in complete silence, he slipped back down the front of the building, falling the last few feet as lightly as a shadow.

Duo unfolded from the crouch and leaned back against the building as if he needed the support. He absently rubbed his arms, shaking out the stress from his exertions, but his eyes stayed wide, staring and slightly dazed.

Then he propelled himself away from the wall and walked, still in absolute silence, towards the rental he'd parked a couple of blocks away. His eyes remained fixed on nothing, unblinking, but after walking a block, his right hand slipped into his back pocket and drew out his phone, flipping it open and hitting a speed-dial sequence without looking.

"Hi. It's me. Or at least it was me last time I checked, but now I'm not so sure of anything anymore. Listen, Q...you're not gonna believe this, I know I barely do, but you were right. Yeah, about Heero and Wu. Uh-huh. That's what I said; well, not out loud of course. Man."

He shook his head in disbelief, finally starting to blink.

"I can't believe it. They're just...you don't know what it's like here. I know you're relieved, but I don't know if I am. It's not like they're...close, you know? I thought you were completely out of your mind when you asked me to find out if they were an item. I spent two weeks living with them and trying to think of ways to tell you your space heart needed new batteries. But then I occasionally got a, well, a funny vibe, I guess you could say, and I wondered if you weren't right after all. It's a really weird scene here, though, they just don't _talk_ to each other, it's frickin' scary. They don't seem to give a shit about each other beyond this 'partner' thing; they tear strips off one another, they don't get jealous if you make a pass, they -"

He interrupted himself, but it was too late. There was a loud and angry exclamation on the other end of the phone, followed by rapid, reproving words. Duo's face scrunched and he rolled his eyes.

"Okay, okay, I know I said I wouldn't try the 'green-eyed monster' gambit but I just wanted to _know_ , and what was I supposed to do, ask them? Actually, I tried that, and Wufei blew me off. So I tried the oldest trick in the book. I mean, I wasn't taking that big a risk, they were never that interested during the war. Hm? Oh well, if one of them had suddenly been interested in me, yeah, that could have been sticky, but what were the chances, I mean, come on, Yuy and Chang? Talk about blood from a stone. Two stones, I should say. Uh? What would I have done if one of them _had_ been interested? Faked a heart attack, probably. It's what I would have done during the war if one of them had ever defrosted long enough to take a second look at my ass, and I never imagined that would happen."

He climbed into the rental that he'd parked a way off but he didn't start the engine. He leaned against the steering wheel with a dazed look back at the workshop.

"Still can't believe you were right, Quatre. I guess this is a good thing...You were worried they were alone and going nuts, but looks like they're going nuts together and having a fucking good time of it on the way. Sure made for an interesting show! Er, yeah, I kinda caught them in the act. Ah, no, Q, I'm still alive, so of course they didn't notice, I was careful, made sure I had a good view from a discreet spot with a good getaway ready - Hey, hey, I was just trying to find out what you wanted to know! And how else was I supposed to- Nah, I didn't watch for long. Just long enough to figure out who was gonna be on top `cause I'm damned if I could have guessed - good grief, it's not the end of the world! You can be so prudish, sometimes. Man. Okay, okay. Sorry. Well, I can't apologize to them, now can I! Uh? 'Which one _was_ -'! Oh no way, Q!" Duo burst out laughing. "I risked my life to find out that piece of information, you ain't gonna get it from me that easy! Anyway, gotta tell you-" the eyes focused on slashes of light from the distant window, "- I gotta tell you, for all that I'm not interested in our hard-assed surly pair, that was the second hottest thing I've seen in my short life. Talking of which, I'll be on L4 in a few hours. You better be wearing something that's easy to remove in a hurry."

He clicked the phone off, cutting off the laughter on the other end, and drove off into the darkness with a feral smile of his own.

 

\---

 

Wufei still held Heero loosely against him. The staccato heartbeat he could feel through Heero's back slowed, along with his own. On the second attempt, Heero managed to get a small towel out of the bedside table without moving from the cage of Wufei's arms, and cleaned himself up in three swipes. Wufei bit down on a sigh, eased out of the warm, pleasant haven, and rolled away to lie on his back. Then Heero turned, after automatically folding the towel and putting it on the floor near his clothes - Wufei rolled his eyes - and let himself fall back on the bed. Heero's hip rolled against Wufei's arm; the latter felt his fingers twitch against warm skin.

I should move, Wufei thought. This was one of those limits they didn't talk about. Beyond all that 'killer instinct' and 'safe space' stuff, Heero just didn't like physical contact. As far as Wufei could gather, he'd spent most years of his life being touched only for training and punishment. He wasn't going to be touchy-feely as a result. Neither was his partner for that matter. Wufei should move...This was one of their habits - rituals - unspoken laws - rigid frontiers...The need for touch was in both of them, but it was assuaged at the same time as their sexual urges. Unless Heero also enjoyed sitting on the couch with him...? Wufei really should move...Though of course, it was Heero who had the biggest problem with contact - Wufei's fingers trembled, flexed slightly, warm skin flowed beneath sensitive pads - and Wufei was tired and comfortable and, damn it, if Heero didn't like it, let him move.

Heero didn't move. Not for ten whole minutes. A mixture of satiated lassitude and stubbornness kept them both still. After ten minutes, Heero finally stood and made his way to his own room without looking back, as was usual, as if nothing slightly different had ever happened, and, in a way, it hadn't. There were no words for that slight need that had trembled on the edge of want. There was no need to delineate it, explain it, admit it. It was gone, past, it had never existed.

It went without saying, really.


	21. Cover Stories, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Wufei's views on women are definitely not my own :D it behooves me to mention that. But he's the scion of a clan of people so traditionalist they go in for arranged marriages between kids, so chances are that he's picked up more than a few cultural hang-ups. Just consider it one of his character flaws, one that makes sense considering his upbringing.

“Using hempen cloth to make gowns.”

\- Hakka proverb.

 

Heero's mouth, lips closed, hard, forceful, pressed against Wufei’s. The kiss knocked his head back against the wall. A crime-scene photograph crinkled as it was crushed beneath his shoulder blades. Heero's body surged against his in a hands-off caress that would have turned Wufei into a bonfire...if shock and complete mortification hadn't drenched any kindling lust.

Despite his surprise at the unexpected move and a rough grip tugging his thigh up against Heero's leg, he managed to keep his hands on Heero's shoulders, instead of decking his partner out of instinctive reflex.

Heero released Wufei as suddenly as he'd grabbed him, and turned away abruptly.

"There. No problem. See?" Heero said. 

Wufei braced himself against the wall, kept his face absolutely neutral with some effort, and turned towards the desk as if nothing had happened.

Une's face was a picture of incredulous shock, predictably enough; she looked like she'd caught their Gundams boning each other.

"I... I...Ah, Agent Yuy, I didn't-...That's not-" Her voice was pitched higher than usual. She turned away abruptly, two ragged red spots staining her cheeks, and reached for a glass of water on the side table. Her hand was shaking slightly.

"That wasn't convincing?" Heero inquired coldly.

"Of course it wasn't, moron!" Wufei snarled, violently shoving Heero out of his personal space. "She said, 'I'm not sure you can pretend you're boyfriends'. She didn't say 'Throw Chang up against the wall and screw him'!"

"What? I didn't- Commander, are you all right?" Heero stopped glaring at Wufei and went around Une's desk. He looked ready to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Une had gasped most of her glass of water into her windpipe, and she was hacking and coughing. However, she still had a fighter's instincts, and she was edging away from Heero with her hands raised protectively at this imminent threat. Wufei moved to her other side reassuringly and patted her on the back, forestalling Heero's efforts; he didn't want his annoying partner arrested for breaking every one of their commanding officer's ribs.

"Here, sit down, Commander. Yuy, get her another glass of water. I apologize for that, Ma'am. But despite Agent Yuy's _enthusiasm_ -" the two partners exchanged a glare that could melt lead, "I can assure you that we are quite capable of fulfilling this mission."

Please, please, please give us this mission! This wasn't something they were used to, in fact, under normal circumstances, Wufei would never have contemplated taking this on despite the three dead officers. But it had been a couple of weeks since Heero had decided he'd recovered from his injuries and was now back up to operational capacity, and, to regain his full combat abilities, he'd been sparring, no holds barred, against Wufei on a twice daily basis. The L5 Preventer wasn't sure he'd survive this fitness program, or his partner's boredom, much longer.

"I... Chang?" Une turned towards him with an almost pleading look in her reddened, watery eyes. She was still coughing, but trying to speak calmly. "You realize it isn't just the, ah, that aspect. Right?" Cough. "I mean, I know you and Yuy will, ah, will-" Cough. "You're willing to do a lot for a mission, but-" Choke.

"Commander, both Yuy and I have performed some undercover operations during the war," Wufei said quietly, though he didn't add that most of them had been very short, and, in at least one case slightly similar to this mission, had ended up with them breaking their cover barely thirty minutes after infiltrating the base and fighting their way out the hard way. But in this case, they weren't being asked to act like teenage prostitutes. Just a normal couple.

Quite challenging already, but they should be able to manage it.

Une seemed to read the assurance in his eyes. It went unsaid that Wufei would be the one counted on to decide what 'normal' was in these circumstances. He hoped he was up to the task.

Heero set a new glass of water on Une's desk and went to glare at the display on the wall. They'd been looking at the photographs when Une had dropped her bombshell of a mission outline - and immediately admitted her reservations about their ability to pose as a couple. Heero had said something about it not being an issue. The next thing he knew, Wufei had been grabbed by one shoulder, spun around and slammed against the evidence wall.   
Some of the photographs were askew; Heero righted them, unaffected by the sight of the executed officers in the shots. Three dead bodies: two local police officers and a Preventer. Heero frowned at the rest of the information pinned to a wall. Photographs of the man responsible for the murders, and some of his entourage. A floorplan of his huge house, taken from the colony's building archives; four stories, an underground garage, sixteen rooms. Circled in red, the office where the target computer system lurked, behind a firewall that had defeated their attempts at hacking it to date.

"If you don't think we're capable of infiltrating the locale, Chang and I could always break into it," Heero threw over his shoulder, fingers tapping at various weak points in the mansion's security.

"No." Une sighed, regrouping behind her official persona. When she straightened up, she was Commander Une again. "No," she said more firmly. "Don't get me wrong, it would be my choice of approach. Faster, and more likely to succeed. I don't doubt you'd find enough evidence to get this man convicted. But there's a chance that you could get caught breaking in, and that would leave us in a very awkward position. The L3 authorities and the ESUN council have decreed that discretion is the highest priority on this mission." Une glanced at them and then shook her head, as if wondering why the hell she was asking Heero and Wufei to do this.

Wufei rather agreed with her unspoken assessment. He sat down in the chair in front of her desk, arms crossed over his chest, frowning. "Yuy and I will do our best, Ma'am, of course, but..."

"I know you're neither of you undercover specialists," Une inserted, guessing what he was about to say. "In fact, this job was tailor-made for Barton and Maxwell. Unfortunately, Barton is on another mission that takes highest priority, and Maxwell is injured."

"What?!" Heero and Wufei exclaimed together. Une blinked in surprise.

"Didn't he tell-"

"How did it happen?" Heero barked, spinning away from the information pinned to the wall, while Wufei leaned forward and asked: "Is it serious?"

"Calm down, gentlemen. He's got a badly sprained wrist and a mild concussion, and it didn't happen on the job, so I didn't think I'd be the one telling you. Though I guess I know why he didn't." Une smirked as if enjoying a private joke.

"He was fine when he left Brussels two weeks ago-" Wufei started.

"He was on leave at Winner's estate on L4 after his mission here," Une explained dryly. "Winner, who is normally an eminently rational person, must have succumbed to a fit of madness and suggested they go horseback riding. Why he ever assumed Duo had ridden a horse before is beyond me; if they saw that much meat on the hoof in the colony Maxwell came from, they'd eat it. But of course Maxwell wasn't going to admit that there was any kind of ride he couldn't master. Apparently, he went about it as if riding a horse and piloting a Gundam were roughly on par. The poor horse managed to throw him or it would have had a cardiac incident, I'm sure. Winner is the one who called to warn me that Duo would be unable to take on any missions for awhile. Maxwell is fine and recuperating at Winner's, but unavailable for at least a few weeks, since it's his gun hand he managed to sprain."

"Oh." Wufei and Une shared a small grin of wicked amusement at the thought of the cocky Deathscythe pilot defeated by a horse. Heero just sniffed and turned back to the far wall with its photographs and floor-plans.

"So the mission parameters are to infiltrate the group of clubbers that get invited to Exeter's mansion. Get invited repeatedly, become known to the guards, evade surveillance during those encounters, break into the office, familiarize ourselves with the system and hack open a landline access to the system." Heero had obviously dismissed the Horse Incident as if it had never happened. Maxwell was unavailable, so he'd take the mission in his stead. Good little soldier, Wufei thought, rubbing his eyes tiredly. He just doesn't have a clue how hard this is going to be...

"Yes. The two undercover police officers had been working this case for three months, with that aim in mind. You'll be following in their footsteps. Well, except for the part where their cover got blown and they were murdered before they could get into the mansion for their first visit."

"Isn't that enough to bring Exeter in for questioning?"

"We don't really care all that much about Exeter," Une explained wearily. "It's the information on his system that is our objective. He's Syndicate."

Wufei leaned forward abruptly. Besides him, Heero quickly slipped into the second chair, concentrating on Une's words.

"He's a financial backer, not a top player. But Exeter has information on high ranking Syndicate members and their financial dealings. This would get us up close and personal with the ones we didn't bring down during the Barton incident."

Heero grunted. Wufei glanced from his partner to Une, catching a troubled look between them. He'd not been involved in that near-disaster, though it had been his information that had led to the break-up of the plot. This had been the mysterious leader who had tried to recruit Wufei after the war, when he'd been wandering like a ghost, looking for a cause. The name he'd given Heero that day, after destroying Nataku and leaving for university, had led the Preventers to an L3 businessman by the name of Dekim Barton; the man who'd financed Heavyarms, as it turned out. Heero had given Wufei a curt outline of what had happened last December: Barton - their Barton - had infiltrated Dekim's operation, and gotten the Preventers enough ammunition to bring the man and his army down. All four of the active Gundam pilots had been involved in this; Wufei had been rather put out when he learned about it, he'd not even read about this in the news. But he couldn't complain, since he'd been the one to walk away at the time.

It turned out that Dekim Barton had been one of several heads of a hydra known only as The Syndicate, a group that had infiltrated all sides of the recent conflict. They were the disease that had set in after too many decades of war. It was an old story, repeated throughout history. War forced the worst of the underworld to evolve, structure itself, protect itself, thereby leaving a virulent, all-pervasive organism behind once peace was declared. The end of martial law meant that the authorities could no longer use truly brutal means of repression, and, like a virus working its way through a weakened immune system, the organism spread, infecting all businesses and walks of life, and rooting itself in deep. Human society had taken decades, even centuries, to rid itself of the Mafia, the Triads, and other similar parasites. Wufei didn't think they would be able to destroy The Syndicate for a long time, until it had grown too complex and heavy for its own good, and society had formed defenses against it.

But that didn't mean they couldn't try. One of the Syndicate's main sources of revenue had been providing weapons to terrorists and rebels the world over. Peace had already been a blow to their finances, hence Dekim's attempt at destroying it. There was now a state of all-out war between the Syndicate and the Preventers. A quiet, hidden conflict without shellings and Gundams; a battlefield of financial manipulations and murders in the dark.

"Exeter has, of course, the usual protections: high ranking politicians, financial support, and enough lawyers to form an army in their own right. Most of his businesses are above board anyway. His links to the Syndicate are mainly for money laundering, and he has top-flight financial wizards to help him drown out the illegal influx of cash. His colony protects him almost as a matter of course...No, we will likely never put Mr Andrev Exeter in jail." Une looked bitter, as she always did when it came to L3 and its tolerance of such corruption. "But we need his information, and the moment he spots a warrant he'll wipe all of it from his systems.

"Fortunately, Mr Exeter is used to the L3 way of doing things, and the amenities of a wartime government when he could bribe his way out of most trouble. He's careless. This gives us a chance to get in close to the higher ups in the Syndicate. Preferably before they pull another coup on us."

"He'd have to be careless to invite unknown people to his mansion, if that's where he keeps this information," Heero affirmed, cold and condemning. Then he went back to the important business: the mission. Une didn't really have to give Heero so much background intel, she just needed to tell him what had to be done. "So we are to infiltrate the objective by posing as a young couple, such as those he regularly invites to- what precisely does he want them for? Sex?"

Very briefly, 'Commander Une' faltered and the much more prim Lady Une threw Heero a horrified glance at his cold, matter of fact question, as well as what he was implying he'd be ready to accept for the mission. But she recovered quickly.

"No, Agent Yuy. He just...likes to have them around. He has a small private club there. Word is, he's bisexual, but he's mainly interested in young, gay couples, preferably men, um..." Une was trying not to squirm under two, clear, hard gazes. "Which is why, well...We don't know how he spotted the two undercover operatives. They were professionals, and good at their job. But they were part of the L3 force, which means-"

"Someone sold them out." Wufei snorted in disgust.

"Probably. The Preventers are not local, so the L3 authorities - the reliable ones - asked us for help. I'm afraid we sent Agent Santoro in blind. He was really there only for a recon, his cover was a bit light. We didn't think-...He was just hanging around, as if trying to pick up people at the club, Désirs. It was too soon after they caught the two cops, though, they must have been keeping an eye out, and Santoro was, well, he was thirty, and not really trained for that milieu. He rather stood out."

"Which is why you're asking us," Wufei finished. "We're young enough where we won't look out of place at this night spot where Exeter picks up his clubbers."

"Yes. And you'll be going in with a proper cover story. We're working overtime to build it, so it'll be ready to set in motion if you agree to-"

"Of course we agree," Heero announced, cold and sure.

"Just a minute, Yuy." Une sighed and rubbed her temples. "I want you two to realize what you're getting into. The investigation into the death of the two undercover policemen indicated they'd been placed under close surveillance by Exeter's men shortly before they were killed. He's - this will sound strange, but he's not an animal, or a hardened criminal, though he will kill if threatened. Apparently all efforts were made to insure that these two men were, indeed, a threat to him before they were executed. Now he's going to be even more careful. You two may never be invited to his mansion at all; he may stop that behavior now. But if he does ask you over, you can expect every aspect of your life to be under close scrutiny for a few days prior to the invite. He'll want to be sure you're not plants. And that means, well-"

"He'll have us followed, investigated, and he might bug our apartment. We understand that," Wufei interrupted calmly. "Don't worry, Commander. As Yuy just demonstrated, I think we can make it look convincing."

Une frowned and fiddled with a folder on her desk. Heero shifted beside him as if to add something at this point. Wufei quickly flicked his fingers on the chair's armrest, catching his attention. Heero's eyes lifted to his. They exchanged a glance; wait, let me do the talking, I'll explain later, Wufei indicated. Heero subsided.

"I'm under pressure by ESUN to send in two more agents for another attempt at infiltration," Une said softly. "Young agents. I have some new recruits who can do the undercover part, but..." Her eyes lifted to them, hard, and angry. "But I'm damned if I'm catering to L3's sensitivities and their wish to avoid a scandal with Exeter by sending two cadets into what could very likely turn into a deadly trap. Personally, gentlemen, I don't think you have much chance of making it into that mansion. I doubt Exeter is dumb enough to keep on inviting pretty young things to his house just to-"

Une's ears caught up with her words and she choked briefly. The 'pretty young things' - war-hardened soldiers who'd killed more men than Exeter and all his goons ever had - waited patiently for her to continue.

"Well, whatever. If you can get the information, I'll be very, very happy, and very, very surprised. But mainly I'm sending you two in because if things hit the fan, I know you can survive it. There's only one thing I'm...worried about.

"You two..." Une's mouth pinched unhappily. "You're my best. You're the ones I send in when I know nobody else can do it. You've busted up operations that I would have needed an army to crack. I...don't want to compromise that. For anything. But I'm aware that putting you into this kind of situation, months living as a- well, it might stress the...entente you two have. It's rather different from what I would normally have you do. I don't want this to ruin your partnership..."

Once more, Wufei could feel Heero stare at him, waiting for him to say the few words that would put Une's worries to rest. Once again, Wufei threw a cautioning glance at his partner.

"Ma'am, don't worry. Yuy and I are professionals. This won't be a problem."

"Very well," Une concluded, resigned. "Sam will brief you. If at anytime you have any doubts about -" she must have caught sight of their 'mission' faces and didn't bother finishing. "Do your best. Don't get killed. Dismissed."

 

 

Wufei wasn't surprised to feel hard fingers grab his arm and drag him off into a section of deserted cubicles, away from the main hallway leading towards Sam's office.

"Why didn't you tell her?" Heero's voice was cold, slightly annoyed but mainly curious. Wufei felt a touch of something...pride maybe; his partner trusted him implicitly, and knew he had to have a reason for keeping silent about the nature of their relationship.

"Tell her what?" Wufei asked patiently, knowing what Heero meant, but needing him to spell it out before he could take it apart.

"That we won't have any problems acting like a couple, or having sex even if they bug our apartment."

"Won't we?" Wufei asked dryly. Heero stared at him, surprised.

"I won't say I'll enjoy knowing someone may be watching." Heero cocked his head to one side. "But that won't stop us. And that's what Une was worrying about. So why-"

"That was only one detail Une was worrying about. And that's why this is going to be hard," Wufei corrected him, suddenly uncomfortable. This was stuff they never talked about. "Look, Yuy... just stop a minute, and run one of our usual days through your mind. Now, remember we're supposed to be a _normal_ couple, above suspicion."

A brief moment of silence...

"Oh." Heero frowned. "Well, we can act...I guess." The brief, uncharacteristic moment of hesitation spoke volumes. Wufei knew Heero hated to admit he wasn't perfect at every aspect of being an agent, but his partner was also brutally honest enough to admit that infiltration was not one of his skills. Not after successfully standing out as, at best, an unsocial jerk in most schools he'd hidden out in during his wartime career.

"Une's mainly worried that we can't act like normal people in every day life, well enough to withstand even a light scrutiny. We're not just supposed to fool the hostiles by screwing each other in bed while they listen in over a mike. We have to convince every person we meet who might be questioned by Exeter's men that we're just a normal couple. And we'll be doing this for months."

Heero glowered at the floor, arms crossed over his chest. Wufei watched the lines of his shoulders expressing the inner struggle; the need to take on and succeed at a mission on one hand, the admission of a difficulty, a lack in his own abilities on the other.

"I don't have much experience. With normal," Heero bit out, still glaring at the floor. "I'm not sure what that entails." Eyes flickered towards Wufei's. "But you said we'd take the mission." There was a question in his words.

"I think we can do it," Wufei answered quietly and firmly. "It won't be easy. But I have enough knowledge about 'normal life', as you call it, to pass. And Une underestimates us."

The rest went unsaid. The closeness, the almost telepathic ability to understand one another, follow one another's near invisible leads in high-risk situations...Damn, they'd managed to delude a live-in Duo Maxwell for two weeks, they could certainly fool a couple of thugs looking through a bad image feed for a few days. No, they weren't normal, but in this instance it was also a strength. Heero Yuy didn't know the meaning of the word embarrassment, as the demonstration for Une earlier proved. He wouldn't trip them up by hesitating or recoiling away from anything. And Wufei thought that, for a mission, and a chance at taking a bite out of the Syndicate, he could once more be the one who drew the attention away from Heero, put up the front. Bury his pride, his normal instincts, and lie to the world without shame, regret or remorse. Besides, if Heero could do it, so could he.

They nodded, arguments, logic and conclusions unspoken, as always, but understood and accepted. Wufei turned, but fingers caught his arm again, more gently this time.

"Still, why didn't you tell Une? That would have set her mind at rest about this mission compromising our team's integrity." Heero seemed simply curious this time, trying to understand his partner's reasoning. Wufei smirked in enjoyment at the thought of Une's face if he'd dropped that one on her, then he shook his head.

"That wouldn't be wise. You heard her worry about how even pretending to be involved would get us embroiled in some emotional tangle. I don't want her double-guessing our competence and detachment from now on, if we were to tell her we actually are fucking each other."

"Une knows us both well enough to realize that our arrangement will not interfere with our performance," Heero refuted firmly.

"Une is a fairly good commander, but she's also a woman," Wufei retaliated. "Women can be good combatants, but they will too easily let their feelings overwhelm them, and then they seem to forget all their common sense, duty and even self-preservation. And they tend to assume other people are the same," he ended with a sneer. Burying the slight pang of bitter regret as he remembered another woman who should have cared more about her self-preservation than the life of her unworthy husband...

Heero's eyebrows shot up. "Is that actually an observation? Because I don't recall-"

"Noin and Zechs. She was all for stopping White Fang blowing up the earth, as long as she could do it without mussing up his hair."

"That's not exactly-"

"That brunette, Hilde, and Maxwell. She was with OZ and she was supposed to shoot him down; instead she ends up saving his life and doing spy work for him."

"Well-... "

"Do I really need another example?"

"Two women don't make-"

"Relena." Wufei laid down his trump card.

Heero visibly winced. "That's not really a valid example," he muttered. "She has her ideals-"

"I wasn't talking about Berlin. Before she even knew she was a Peacecraft, you threatened to kill her what, twice? At least?"

"How did you know-"

"Maxwell has a big mouth, and found the whole episode very amusing. He tells it like it’s one of his best jokes if you give him half a chance. You know what I would do if you threatened to shoot me even once, Yuy?"

"You'd get me first," Heero muttered, conceding.

"Right! Women don't have the ability to make completely rational judgments in combat situations, it's that simple. They think with their hearts, not their heads. I don't think they should even be involved in fighting. They should just take care of business or diplomacy, like the Peacecraft woman, or they should stay at home and make babies- what?"

Heero's eyes had focused on the hallway behind Wufei and widened in alarm. "H-hello, Sally," he said, tone and stance a warning.

Wufei stiffened and spun around, bracing himself. He turned back slowly from the quite empty hallway to glare at the growing smirk on Heero's face. Good touch, he granted reluctantly, though on the outside he simply sneered dismissively.

"All I'm saying is that we should not divulge the -"

Heero actually laughed, a twisted little snicker. "You're right, men do have a better sense of self-preservation,"

"-the details of our arrangement, Yuy, concentrate, I-"

"Maybe we should discuss this whole issue with Une."

"Mission, Yuy. Dead bodies. The Syndicate-"

"But don't mention the thing about the babies."

"- dead fellow officers -"

"She'd castrate you."

"If you're quite finished, Yuy!" Wufei snarled at that smug look, acknowledging defeat. Score, Yuy.

"Yes." Heero smirked. Then he was all business again, indifferently locking away the Heero Yuy that Wufei was the only one allowed to see. "Let's go talk to Sam."

 

 

Wufei went to get the next box from the van. Heero wasn't helping; he was inside unpacking the computer system and the hub, and glowering at the rather primitive setup he'd have to make due with. Student life sucked, Wufei thought with a sly grin.

"Mr... Chan Gen Lin?"

Wufei had kept an ear on the footsteps behind him, curbing his desire to turn around and face the potentially hostile person approaching at his six. He looked around only when she spoke, turning with the last box in his arms. Ah, the lawyer. He noted how she'd tripped over his assumed name and gotten it in the wrong order; she wouldn't be familiar with Asians and their customs, here on L3.

"Yes? May I help you?" Wufei asked politely.

"My name is Phillipa Scarriot." The young, horse-faced woman in a tidy green suit was looking at him curiously. "I work for the firm Meier and Konstanz."

"Ah, yes."

"I was very sorry to hear about your uncle, Mr Lin." Not, of course, that she'd known him, Wufei reflected, or that the uncle had ever existed.

"Call me Chang. It's a nickname," Wufei said easily enough. He'd practiced saying that for the last week. "Oh, and this is Yuy Summers. My boyfriend." Boy, that had taken some practice too. But he barely stuttered anymore.

Heero had come out of the apartment with a scowl on his face, probably ready to complain about the computer system again. He was now looking at the lawyer as if wondering if she were armed.

Sam had taken personal charge of their cover story, much to Wufei's relief. The old Fox knew how they worked. It meant they could still call each other Chang and Yuy, when the regular information services of Ops were going to set them up with fake identities using their first names, the ones they never used with each other. Sam also insured that they both had a bit of military background in their falsified records - OZ cadets, ironically enough - and that Heero had left behind him in his previous 'job' a record of being sullen and uncommunicative, an unsocial computer nerd. It all helped...

Phillipa's eyebrows had flexed a bit at the mention of 'boyfriend', but she'd covered the moment of surprise with the promptitude and smoothness of someone who never had any opinion whatsoever about a client’s personal life as long as his cheque cleared. 

"A pleasure to meet you, Mr Summers. Phillipa Scarriot, from Meier and Konstanz."

"What do you want?"

Shit, Yuy, you could at least make an effort, Wufei thought resignedly, as Phillipa bridled ever so slightly at the curt demand. He firmly shoved the box into Heero's arms and turned towards the lawyer.

"Sorry, he didn't sleep much in the shuttle over. What can I do for you? I thought I'd signed all the papers already."

"Yes, we just need you to fill in this form here, taking formal possession of the property and acknowledging that all was left in order by the former tenant. Take your time checking it, and send it in by fax or mail. You're settling in well, I hope?" Her eyes trailed after Heero who was carrying the box upstairs without further word to either of them.

Wufei nodded at the moving van that had brought their few personal items, those items that people in their circumstances were supposed to have. "We had to buy some furniture, but mostly, we're good."

"I understand that you're enrolled in our university?"

"Yes. Both Yuy and I were taking courses by correspondence and working part-time back on Earth, but now, of course..." Wufei let the expected minute of silence elapse in memory of his supposedly deceased uncle, who'd left him a bit of money, this apartment and a few other properties, allowing him to attend university full time on L3. Phillipa let the minute pass with ingrained professional courtesy, then pretended to look interested.

"What courses do you attend, Mister- sorry, Chang?"

"Asian Literature, modern." Wufei didn't have to fake the small smile. It wouldn't be a drag keeping up his cover; he had enough knowledge to do so, and he was rather looking forward to a few months of proper courses. "Yuy is doing a degree in advanced computer engineering." The only difficulty about maintaining that cover would be for Heero not to let his professors realize that he knew ten times more than they did. And to handle the boredom. Heero hadn't been overjoyed at his proposed coursework, but he'd muttered something about doing some research on AI security programs to keep him busy. As long as he didn't reinvent Zero, or a computer that would try to take over the world, Wufei wouldn't interfere. A severely bored Heero would be rather unpleasant to live with.

"I hope you enjoy your stay on L3, Chang. Here's my card. Please don't hesitate to call me if you have any questions or problems. I think you'll enjoy it here. This is a fairly nice neighborhood, and it's so convenient for the University! It's got handy transport to the center of town - the night life on this colony is much more exciting than in many other clusters. Where did you say you were working, before you came here?"

"Tokyo."

"Ah. Well. Of course, we're just a colony. Ah-" Phillipa might have added more civilities, but at that moment Heero returned from the apartment. He stopped right next to Wufei and looked silently at the lawyer. Wufei could almost read the thoughts going through her mind. Boyfriend; probably jealous, possessive, and definitely unpleasant. In fact, Heero obviously just wanted a word with him, and was waiting for her to leave, but Wufei could see how she could misunderstand that silence and intense look. It was why they might actually manage this infiltration, Wufei thought, not for the first time. Heero didn't act normally, true, but his actions were often open to a normal interpretation, and anything he did that was truly bizarre would hopefully be put down to the fact that he was an unsociable computer geek and left at that. And, put plainly, it didn't feel like he was playing a part, simply because no one would be expected to be that bad at it. They might not make any friends, Wufei thought, watching Phillipa hastily excuse herself, trot back to her car and drive off a bit abruptly, but they probably wouldn't get spotted as undercover agents either.

"Yes?" he whispered, watching Phillipa's fast departing vehicle.

Heero turned without a word and left Wufei to follow him back into the apartment. It was much smaller than their safe-house. The living-room and kitchenette were big enough for two people, as long as they didn't have the territorial instincts of male tigers. There was a very small study for Heero's computer, still in its boxes, and a bedroom where Wufei could read when he wanted some solitude. He could see it from here, the door opened, boxes piled here and there. And a single bed, queen-sized.

"We're clear," Heero announced, closing the front door carefully behind them. "I checked, no bugs yet."

"Checked?" Wufei tore his eyes away from the bed. "What do you mean?"

"Sam left me some detection equipment. He'll send a courier to pick it up in a couple of hours," Heero added as Wufei's eyes widened in alarm. Though it would be weeks, months, before they might expect Exeter's men to check their apartment, they couldn't have anything like that around when it happened. "Foxwood wanted to be sure we were clear at least to start with, though there's no reason we shouldn't be. He said we might need some time to settle into our roles." Heero shrugged and idly switched on the overhead light; they'd drawn the curtains from force of habit when they first walked into the apartment, Wufei suddenly realized. Damn. Well, they'd start ironing out small details like that tomorrow. Sam was right, this was going to take some getting used to. It was nice to know they could at least discuss things out loud for a day or two to start with.

"We need to set up a system of communication, now that we're here." Heero's eyes were sweeping the apartment professionally. "A set of codes and signals we can use once we're no longer sure of this place's integrity. We can also talk at the university in case of emergencies. We'll scout out possible RV spots tomorrow. When do we recon the preliminary objective?"

"If you mean, when do we wander over to Désirs and have a drink, we'll go tonight," Wufei answered dryly. He felt suddenly curious to know what it would be like to live with Heero when he wasn't acting like, well, a soldier. Or a rival, or a brother-in-arms, or a fellow tiger. Wufei assumed he'd be doing most of the talking once they were fully undercover. The idea of Heero making small talk just...didn't fit into his view of the world.

"Tonight?" Heero looked askance. "So soon?"

"Yes, we might as well establish ourselves there. We won't go for long, just an hour or so. Get a feel for the place and let them see us. It's a fairly well-known club on the gay scene, it's not unlikely our alter-egos would have heard of it on the net before coming. And I want to go before the weekend; there won't be so many people tonight."

Heero nodded, in acceptance rather than informed agreement. It was understood that this was Wufei's operation, at least until they became regulars at Exeter's mansion, some of the beautiful people he collected for his private club. Then, assuming they could sneak away - or even get there in the first place - Heero would once more be in his element, cracking their computer and security systems for Ops to access whatever information Exeter kept there, as discreetly as possible.

In the meantime...Wufei found that he was looking at the bed again. "Are you going to be able to sleep on that? I mean, sleep with me?" Damn, that had sounded weird. As weird as 'boyfriend'.

"I can catnap with someone in the same room," Heero answered, without turning around. He was digging through the boxes in the study, pulling out cables.

"We're going to be at this for months, Yuy, until we get into Exeter's place or until Une pulls the plug on this mission. You can't catnap for months."

Heero paused, hands entangled in cables, eyes thoughtful. "My university courses end at five most days. So do yours, right? I can come back here and sleep for a few hours. That will keep me operational." He'd be able to sleep, alone in the bed, while Wufei kept watch in the living room; it really went without saying.

"The courses end at five, but we're supposed to be students. They don't come back home and take naps, Yuy. I think part of your curriculum forces you to stay late at night with the other geeks, doing odd things to your computer networks and playing marathon sessions of the latest strategy game."

"If I play a strategy game, it won't last long enough to qualify as a marathon," Heero pointed out dryly. Wufei snorted and decided not to remind Heero that they had to blend in. He'd feel the situation out later, how much deviation from the norm his partner could get away with. Wufei and Sam had taken care to place the 'Yuy Summers' character at the far end of the 'unusual' scale anyway, so it was likely he'd be okay.

"I'll go get us lunch from the local deli," Wufei announced. "You stay here, start putting the furniture we bought together, unpack a few things. And I don't mean the computer equipment, Yuy. Start with our clothes, they may need an iron. We'll unpack this afternoon, then we'll get ready for tonight." He cast one last look at the bed and left to see if the deli had something edible. He was tense; there were so many small details that could trip them up. And they might end up killing each other before the week was out, he added with a mental snort; they weren't used to cohabitating peacefully, without sparring matches and missions to relieve their natural tension. But there was a small part of Wufei that felt a twinge of anticipation, too. This would be different, challenging... and interesting. He found he was rather looking forward to it.


	22. Cover Stories, Part II

"Cheat the ghosts by wearing clothes made of leaves."  
\--- Hakka proverb

 

"Chang... " Heero toyed with the rice, which was so watery and overcooked that Wufei had unpacked the spoons instead of their usual chopsticks, or lunch would have taken hours.

"Sorry, they didn't have much of a selection at the deli. I didn't think you'd want sauerkraut or paella. I'll get some fresh supplies tomorrow, and we'll find a proper place for take-out."

Heero gave him his usual dead-eyed stare. "I wasn't worried about the food."

"That's because you don't have any taste buds," Wufei muttered, shoving the plate of bland chow mein away, and grabbing an apple. He took a bite and grimaced in distaste. Floury. And pretty expensive. Damn, he'd only been on earth a year, but already he'd forgotten what it was like to live on the colonies. With a student budget to work with, too; he'd have to get creative with their menus.

"We've been so busy these last few days, we've not had time to go into details on this mission yet." Heero pushed his own plate away too. He was looking at Wufei seriously. "What exactly are we expected to do?"

Wufei's apple hovered near his lips. The week since they'd accepted the mission had been hectic: building the cover stories, memorizing them, getting the necessary items for their roles. Flying to Tokyo to try to set up what background they could in so short a time, and showing themselves at a few of the places they were supposed to have frequented. They'd not had time to discuss much about what they'd do once they got to L3. But now that they were here, they had months to figure out how to get noticed by Exeter and get invited into his pack.

But that wouldn't do for Heero Yuy, Wufei realized. His partner had to have clear guidelines from the start.

Wufei watched Heero walk away from the rickety kitchen table and pace the living room, from the small couch, to the television Sam had insisted they needed. They'd have to watch it, Wufei suddenly realized. To maintain their cover. The news, and maybe a film or two. Sitting on the couch. There wasn't anywhere else to sit, and it'd look weird if they didn't. Wufei looked at it blankly. It was a very small couch...

"Chang?"

"Hmm? Oh, well, you know the outline already. We hang out at Désirs. It's Exeter's club, one of his cash cows on this colony. He often goes there at night and watches the action. If we spend time at the club, once or twice a week and on Saturdays, then he'll see us there eventually and hopefully give us an invitation to his mansion."

"I know that bit," Heero snapped. "What no one's bothered to explain to me is how we're supposed to get that invitation. They have hundred of people going in and out of that club. He only invites a few. How do we catch his attention?"

Wufei considered his partner thoughtfully. Heero was pacing the living room with the grace and raw power of a tiger shouldering his way through a jungle, arrogant and sure. His jeans - Sally and Lu had had a field day, dragging Heero off to go shopping, and Wufei would be eternally glad that, one, he didn't have to go, having an adequate wardrobe, and that two, he'd had the foresight of disarming Heero before the trip. The jeans were one of the new acquisitions, and obviously made Heero feel uncomfortable; he was digging his hands in the back pockets again, trying to loosen the cling of the denim against his skin. Heero hardly ever wore anything but loose fatigues, or sweatpants and tank top when he worked out. Wufei scrutinized the well-sculpted body in the tight denim and a clinging dark blue long-sleeved t-shirt that defined his partner's chest and abs, and thoughtfully weighed them against Exeter's known set of criteria.

"I don't think catching his attention will be too difficult. Don't worry about it."

"What? I don't understand. First of all, what is he looking for? The outline said gay couples, but that's a bit vague. They pretty much don't let anyone else into Désirs."

"He's looking for beautiful, interesting people," Wufei recapitulated, remembering the information they'd been given. "He invites them to dance at his mansion and to party with him. Occasionally he indulges in a threesome, when it's obvious all parties are interested. But we won't have to go there, we just need to get into the joint."

"How? Beautiful and interesting...interesting how? Do we have to dance well?"

"No, and I don't think we'll dance anything too vigorous to start with. We both move like martial artists, and it shows."

"Then what are we supposed to be doing?"

"Well, drinking-"

"We can't do too much of that. Neither of us is used to alcohol."

"True."

"So what are we going to be doing? How do we get noticed?" Heero bit out, sitting abruptly on the couch and crossing his arms over his chest.

"In your case, Yuy? Don't talk, sit around and try to look sexy. Even if that doesn't get us in, the entertainment value alone should be worth it."

The look that quip got him deserved its own chapter in the Heero Yuy Book of Death Glares. Wufei was suddenly thankful that they didn't have the room to spar in this apartment.

"Seriously, Yuy." Wufei stood and stretched, then turned to gather the plates. "The only qualifications are to be young, look good, and grab his fancy. I don't know how to do the latter any more than you do, but the first two we should be able to manage. If that doesn't get us in after a couple of months, at least we'll be familiar enough with the club by then to see if we can try something else: talk to one of his men; make friends with the bartender; get up on stage and dance. I don't know. We've got time to figure it out, remember."

He put the dishes in the sink, turned on the water. Time...This wasn't one of their quick and dirty jobs. One of the most essential parts of this mission would be to get into the skin of their alter-egos. Chan Gen 'Chang' Lin, and Yuy Summers. Heero was focusing on their objective, of course, but there was so much more that would be involved. Meeting the neighbors, paying bills, touring the colony, finding places to eat, making friends with a few other students, hanging out, jogging together before classes - since they would quickly miss any physical activity, but couldn't indulge in their usual sparring. In fact, far from fighting each other, they'd have to be friendly, even here, in private. No more put-down matches; well, fewer of them anyway. And in between they'd have to act, well, like a couple. They'd have to talk about their day; go to the movies; dance together at Désirs; take walks in the park; meet up at Uni and have lunch together...

Wufei turned off the water briskly, covering the slight tremble of panic that had run through him. There was something fundamentally surreal about the whole thing, and it...worried him in a way he found hard to define. He decided it was because of all the hurdles he knew they had to face; figuring out how to behave at Désirs was important, but it was just one of many stumbling blocks the partners would be facing. No wonder Une didn't think they had a chance in hell.

But they'd prove her wrong. Wufei glanced around the small apartment - their apartment. How hard could it be? They routinely fought side by side against impossible odds. Brothers-in-arm. How hard could it be to just act like normal people? Together? This was a mission. They were not in the habit of failing those.

Wufei glanced at Heero as he put the plates in the drainer. Was Heero thinking the same thing he was? Possibly. Their abilities to read each other were amplified by danger, in clear-cut life and death situations, and this hadn't become one yet. Wufei discreetly studied the hard profile from the kitchenette, trying to follow the train of his partner's thoughts in the stiff neck, the tightly crossed arms. Heero was staring at the television as if wondering what it was for. He looked a bit tense. Wufei couldn't blame him. But he was Heero's template in this, he had to forge ahead, ignoring the little twist of worry twisting in his stomach. Assuming an assuredness he didn't quite feel, he walked over to his partner and squeezed his shoulder over the couch's back. Heero started and twisted to stare at him. Wufei met the look calmly, silently reminding his partner that they'd have to get used to small gestures like that.

Heero sighed in self-directed annoyance at his own reaction. "Yes?"

"Let's go put the stuff away, I hate living in boxes. Then we can choose what we'll wear tonight and talk about what to expect."

"Got a lot of experience in this?" Heero asked archly, as he stood up and followed Wufei into the bedroom.

"Some. I did go to such places during my university days in China."

"You did?"

Wufei glanced back at the uncharacteristic level of surprise in Heero's voice. "Yes, of course. Clubbing and hanging out in bars is a rather standard student activity."

Heero continued to stare at him in surprise. Wufei shrugged nonchalantly, opening a box. "A friend of mine, Ko. He dragged me out a few times."

"Oh?" Heero blinked, still obviously off balance. Surprised that Wufei had actually had a life, a social existence, in the time they'd spent apart?

"It's not something I enjoyed," Wufei admitted. "I mainly sat in a corner, drinking orange juice and waiting until Ko was distracted enough that I could slip out and head home without him moaning at me for being an antisocial jerk."

The press of drunken bodies, the flashing lights, the noise drowning his senses... he'd have felt more at ease in an interrogation room. He'd never been tempted to repeat the experience once he'd become Heero's partner, though Sally and Lucrezia had invited them both out a couple of times. He doubted he'd enjoy it any more now than he had then, the whole concept seemed trivial, boring and a waste of time. Most things did, outside of the job. The partnership and the arrangement it entailed had become the center of his life, and they kept him on an edge of excellence and adrenaline which made most entertainments pale in comparison.

"I only went a few times, but I have some idea on how to behave. Watching the crowds was about the only thing I had to keep me from becoming totally bored. From my observation, clubbing mainly consists of sitting in hard seats drinking watery beer, staring around the room, watching the opposite sex while trying not to be too obvious while they do pretty much the same. Then occasionally dancing like scarecrows, or going into agonies of indecision about inviting a girl to dance, then hanging around her like a puppy if she says yes. Here, we'll put my books in the living room, they won't fit in here."

"Right," Heero said, picking up the box absently and turning away. Wufei had been holding one end of the heavy box of books, waiting for Heero to help him by lifting the other end, and found himself empty-handed and staring at his partner's back; but that worked too. He shrugged and opened the next box. Shoes.

"So that's what we can expect?" Heero, apparently fully recovered from his previous surprise, glanced up from the books as Wufei passed by him, carrying the shoes to the cupboard near the door.

"Yes. Well, except for the bit about looking at the opposite sex. And since we're supposed to be together, you can't look too long at anybody of the same sex either. But mainly we'll just be drinking, watching people, trying to talk together, dancing when the music's slow, and eventually leaving to go home and study."

"Trying to talk together?"

"The music will be loud."

"We can lip-read. Oh."

"Yes, oh, as in, we don't want that to be obvious."

"This is going to be...quite challenging," Heero commented, voice soft. Wufei glanced over his shoulder at the uncharacteristic pause in his partner's voice. Heero was holding some books in front of the cheap shelves they'd bought, but he was not looking at them. His eyes were focused on the upcoming mission. He looked intense, expectant, and not all that daunted by his lack of knowledge. Heero Yuy loved a good challenge, even this kind. The fact that this was terra incognita to him, and dangerous because of that, just excited him. He was treating this like an infiltration mission into hostile territory, Wufei realized, not like it was a first date, which it was, by a stretch of the imagination. Wufei wondered if Heero would be even able to see this as anything other than a mission. Though that was, of course, the best frame of mind for him to be in. As long as Wufei fed him the right cues, Heero, as an excellent soldier, would get it right and not worry about appearances and sordid emotionality. Wufei felt the flicker of excitement rush through him too, setting the torch to his previous faint worries; this would be a test of their skill to communicate in silence, of their ability to fool the enemy - the other clubbers, and anybody else who might notice they didn't belong there. If they got it wrong, they might end up like the other three officers who'd previously failed.

"I doubt we'll have that many problems." He shrugged, careless, arrogant, and sure of their skills. Heero's eyes held a well-known gleam as he glanced up, hearing that familiar tone. "Besides, our cover story is good, and we look young enough that they won't suspect we're cops. Hell, the most they'll be suspicious of is that we faked our driver's licenses to get into the club. It's going to be hard enough to look like we're eighteen."

"Hn."

They worked on the boxes in silence for most of the afternoon, deep in their own thoughts. Heero started to flip through his course material with a disgusted look on his face. Then he glanced up as Wufei put away the last pieces of kitchenware.

"You mentioned getting dressed?"

"Yes. Let's go check out your wardrobe. I didn't actually get to see what Sally and Lu bought you."

"I bought it all. The only thing they did was pick things out and giggle." And you weren't there with me, the grumble clearly stated. Some brother-in-arms you are!

Wufei smirked, glad, once more, he'd been able to dodge that particular trip, and knowing it showed. Heero glowered.

"Do I have to wear these jeans? They feel constraining."

"I noticed. You keep tugging at them like that and they'll be completely shapeless before the week's out."

The look on Heero's face indicated he could live with that.

"You don't have to wear those jeans. It's important that you're comfortable, especially on this first visit. You'll wear fatigues." Wufei opened the closet.

"Won't it be strange, to wear my fatigues to a bar?"

"You won't be wearing your fatigues, you'll be wearing mine."

"Yours?! But you're one size smaller than me."

"Precisely."

"What?"

"We're trying to show off your assets, Yuy," Wufei stated as crisply and neutrally as possible. He hoped Heero wouldn't ask him for any more explanations.

"Humf. What are you wearing?"

"Black jeans and my red tunic."

"You wear that around the house and at Ops."

"So? We're not going to the opera here. We just need something to look natural in." Wufei tossed a few items at his partner, including his dark green fatigues, and slipped his Chinese tunic from its hanger. They'd go eat first, find a restaurant close to the club, maybe walk around the neighborhood. They'd memorized the floor plan of Désirs until they could draw it in their sleep, but it was always good to see the real thing too, including exits and back alleys. Then they'd pop in and have a drink, get a feel for the place. Wouldn't stay too long, not the first night. And then...Wufei realized he was staring at the bed again.

He turned abruptly, slipping on his tunic. After a moment of inner struggle, he gave in to the necessities of the mission, slipped off his fastener and finger-combed his hair out. It had grown since the war, reaching to his shoulder-blades now. He'd have to get it cut at some point... He caught Heero staring at him briefly in the mirror, measuring the move, its significance.

"Here, wear this." Wufei fished around the small box of accessories Sally had remembered to throw in. He drew out a bracelet made of a simple leather thong running through a piece of pierced jade. Heero took it from his hands and attached it without protest. He stayed right behind Wufei, watching him as the L5 Preventer set a small ring in his newly pierced ear. After throwing Heero to the wolves, his honor had pushed him into accepting this small concession and personal sacrifice to the mission. Besides, Sally had insisted.

Wufei gazed into the half-length mirror attached to the wall above the dresser. The clothes were familiar, but the hair brushing his shoulder blades was making his hands itch to pull it back and fasten it, and the earring seemed to stand out way more than that small, simple strip of metal could justify. He looked young, unprofessional, and different. It felt weird, but he had to get used to it quickly. He couldn't afford any signs of discomfort. He glanced at Heero in the mirror; his partner had taken another step closer and was standing right behind him, staring over his shoulder. He looked fairly normal, though there was still a small shock in seeing Heero with any kind of ornament, even something as insignificant as that cheap bracelet.

Lost in thought, he tensed as Heero slipped his arm around his waist. Heero's face was cold and neutral in the mirror; he seemed to be trying the gesture out, deliberately and calculatingly. Wufei didn't comment, and started to fasten the row of small buttons on his tunic's sleeves. Part of his attention was on the mirror though. He saw Heero glance around the room, as if measuring each object and piece of furniture for its strategic value, then he stared at the bed. His partner's lips curled in an expression that definitely belonged to their arrangement rather than the roles they were playing.

Heero's hips shifted. He tightened the arm around Wufei's abs, and his groin was a solid pressure against his partner's ass.

"We'll be coming back here after the club."

"Unless you particularly wanted to sleep under a bridge, yes."

"We should get used to doing other things like normal people," Heero murmured. "Before they might plant a bug in here."

"Possibly," Wufei answered neutrally. The last week, they'd been busy and out of the safe-house, so of course, no sex. Now...well, that was something else that was going to feel weird. Fucking on a mission; that was going to take some getting used to. That, and the fact they couldn't go at it like two tigers mating either. Wufei felt a prickle of heat, excitement mixed with uncertainty and still a little foreboding he couldn't explain. He bent over the second row of buttons to cover the moment.

"We should try to make it sound convincing." Heero swayed his hips ever so slightly. The hand on Wufei's abdomen pressed him against that movement so that his body swayed with it. "Maybe...you could scream my name out while we're having sex."

Wufei's eyebrow twitched. This was a game. Right? Heero was trying to bait him. 

Heero's other hand walked up his spine to toy with the lengths of his hair.

"And I could..." Heero's voice was soft and low in his ear, speculative.

"You could what? I don't own you, Yuy, if you want to dress up in a maid outfit or something, I have no right to object." Wufei straightened his sleeve's cuff with a crisp movement.

There was a moment of silence behind him, and then the hand drifted from playing with his hair to pressing the back of his cranium.

"It would be very easy to snap your neck in this position, Chang," Heero commented softly, eyes like polished gunmetal in the mirror.

"We have to work on your pillow talk," Wufei countered idly. "Spare me the threats. You may be the perfect soldier, Yuy, but even you can't play the role of a couple by yourself."

That was a double touch; Heero hated that 'perfect soldier' tag. The growl in Wufei's ears was a reluctant concession as their eyes clashed in the reflection - smug on one hand, a sulky glower on the other. Score, Chang.

 

 

The bouncer took one look at them and practically dragged them into Désirs. Good, apparently they'd dressed and acted correctly. Preliminary target, infiltrated.

Not that it would have been all that difficult. It was a quiet night, being a Thursday, the club was hardly bursting at the seams. There were about twenty people present, maybe a few more in the darker nooks and crannies. There were mostly couples, as well as a small party of two girls and four guys, a group of friends looking for action. A few loners drank at the bar.

Wufei and Heero chose a seat against the wall, on a small bench behind an octagonal table bolted into the floor. A waiter came over and asked them for their drinks selection - but not their IDs, Wufei noted. L3, true to its European roots, was rather lax about the legal drinking age. The waiter looked at them with some curiosity and asked them if this was their first time here. Wufei did the talking; explaining about their move here, university, the dead uncle and the rest. Heero was a pool of tension by his side, but he didn't think the waiter noticed. His partner was wearing his game face, the assassin's mask that Odin had crafted for him in his childhood. Wufei had already resolved not to do anything about that; Heero would never be Mr Sociable and any efforts to change him into such would feel tooth-achingly false. It shouldn't be a problem where their mission was concerned; he doubted Exeter picked his beautiful people according to their wit or extroverted personalities. Their source of information said that he rarely talked to them before having one of his men extend an invitation. No, Heero could keep his mask. It would help him feel more comfortable and in control in this rather unusual situation. And maybe Exeter had a thing for dark, silent and dangerous types, in which case, Wufei thought with a mental roll of his eyes, they were a shoo-in.

Wufei felt a tug on his hand beneath the table. He turned towards his partner. Heero was talking, he could tell by the very faint movement of his jaw, but he was whispering without moving his lips, like a ventriloquist. A very useful ability when under possible surveillance, but Wufei could see in Heero's eyes the instant he realized that it would be pretty useless in Désirs; the music wasn't as loud as some of the places Ko had dragged Wufei to, but it still easily covered Heero's discreet attempts at communication.

Wufei leaned over, put his hand on Heero's jaw to turn his head slightly, then put his lips next to his ear. Heero, startled, had gone about as tense as garrotte wire for an instant, but was now forcing himself to relax. Good.

"Talk like this," Wufei said, quietly - absently noting the smell of Heero's hair, skin and shampoo this close, familiar scents cutting through the odor of stale cigarette smoke clinging to the walls. "Keep your hand in front of your lips. They won't be able to use directional mikes in this noise."

Heero turned towards him. There was a moment of hesitation; this close, pressed up against him, Wufei could read it in Heero's body like braille. Heero lifted a hand, leaned towards Wufei's ear, fingering a lock of hair to give him an excuse to mask the movement of his lips. Wufei gave his partner full marks for improvisation in the heat of the moment. He quickly turned over the picture they must make in his mind and decided they probably looked like a couple sharing some secret, or flirting or whatever. Nothing suspicious, as long as they didn't hide their lip movements too often.

"Are you sure about mikes? Modern filtering technology," Heero questioned concisely, at odds with the 'flirting' image that Wufei had been mentally examining.

"We're good for now. They won't have a bead on us yet, not for weeks, maybe months. If ever Exeter wants to pick us up, that's when we have to be careful." By then, they would hopefully no longer have anything truly urgent to communicate this way. As he spoke, Wufei vaguely noted the warmth of Heero's skin up close, and he frowned as the tickle of breath near his ear when it caused a loose curl of hair to tease his skin. Haircut, definitely.

"The waiter," Heero said softly. "He was checking us out."

Wufei leaned back sharply; he couldn't help himself, that was really not what he was expecting, and his first instinct was to read Heero's body language to understand what his partner was trying to tell him, like a partially deaf person instinctively turning towards a speaker to lip-read. A glance at Heero's face, demeanour... he meant the waiter was a potential hostile, casing them out, Wufei realized, obscurely relieved for some reason.

"Don't worry about it, he was just curious," he dismissed, leaning back to talk into Heero's ear again. He felt his partner nod, silently accepting his assurance on the matter, as he usually did. They both knew Heero's radar was exquisitely tuned to detecting hostility and fear, but was rather off when it came to other kinds of attention. Like curiosity. Or sexual interest. Or a mixture of both.

The waiter returned with their drinks. He didn't seem to mind Heero's scrutiny. With tight black pants, a black vest and little else, he was probably used to it, and hopefully he wouldn't realize Heero was checking him over for hidden weapons and surveillance devices. Wufei smiled and paid for the drinks; beers, as light as they could get on L3. It would be the first time he'd be having anything alcoholic apart from a little rice wine during formal ceremonies at his colony. Heero wouldn't even have that experience, but with his abnormal metabolism, he would hopefully not react too badly. His partner was eyeing the glass, expression neutral as always, so no one but Wufei would read the rather dubious look he was giving the golden liquid reflecting shards of the red lighting from the corners of the club.

Wufei took a sip. It was chilled, which was nice, but the taste made him want to grimace. He'd take rice wine any day. But since he doubted they had that here, he'd have to get used to it. He glanced around the club as discreetly as possible, then realized that, if reconnoitering would be suspicious, curiosity on the other hand was perfectly natural. So he looked around openly.

The club was dark, with low red lighting in strategic places and highlights of gold and amber over the bar, the dance floor and a few of the alcoves. It looked pretty much like the clubs Ko had dragged him to back in university; all hard edges and plastic. There were several raised sections here and there on the dance floor, of different heights. The braver or more intoxicated would get up and dance on those small podiums under the flashing lights when the weekend turned the place into a press of bodies. Empty, they looked like broken columns in a particularly chic ruin. Wufei tried to rid his mind of the image as the lights swirled once over the dance floor, lazily, blood red, fire yellow.

The small party of six were the only ones dancing at present, fairly self-consciously, with loads of grinning dares and smirks at each other, getting their courage from numbers and a few drinks. The dance floor was large, the middle of it as hostile and empty as a no-man's-land; they were hanging out at one end, nearest the bar. The bartender was looking at them, glancing up occasionally from a card he was holding. There were two waiters for the whole floor and terraces. It was only ten o'clock at night, and a weekday, presumably that was enough personnel. They were leaning on the far end of the bar, talking together and ignoring one of the customers as he signaled for another drink.

Wufei's eyes lingered over the patrons, but didn't dwell overly long on the more significant people present. A man was leaning against a thin metal pillar in front of a discreet stairway, eyes hard and watchful, at odds with the relaxed air of the customers. Bodyguard. That meant Exeter was here. He often spent a couple of hours at the club, even during the week. Wufei didn't look at the sheet of one-way glass high up on one wall. Recon indicated that that was where Exeter was when he was in residence, working, or watching the dancers in the floor below. It was at an angle to where Wufei and Heero were sitting, so they wouldn't be visible, but that was all right. It wasn't really Wufei's intention to get noticed this first night. They'd have plenty of time for that. This was habituation.

Heero's hand reached for Wufei's face, fingers gentle on his cheek. Wufei let his head be turned away from the bodyguard, eyes flickering over the rest of the room automatically, while Heero leaned close to him. Lips brushed Wufei's ear; he quickly took another mental snapshot of their position, checking for flaws. They were both nice and relaxed. Good, very good. Just a small part of his mind boggling at the fact that Heero was touching him like that in public. But most of him was focused.

"Bodyguard at stairs, two hostiles at back door. And bouncer."

"Yes." Wufei smiled as if Heero had said something nice. He'd noticed the two goons at the exit as well. That was fairly routine for Exeter. He should have two more people with him at least; his principal bodyguard, a hardened woman named Abigail Pels, and his aide and sometimes lover, Raphaël Romain, an ex of the Foreign Legion who was still a pretty good shot for someone with an administrative job nowadays. Not that they would actually have to exchange gunfire with any of these people, Wufei reminded himself, not if they did the job the way they were supposed to.

The music started to get louder, and a couple joined the party on the dance floor. More people arrived. Regular customers greeted the bartender and waiters. The songs got dancy. Mostly they were modern pieces, things Wufei heard on the radios while hunting down suspects in the trendier parts of town. The fashion nowadays was some sort of electronic baroque with the 'singer' dropping a few, unrelated words here and there in a desperate panting, high-pitched voice, which Wufei couldn't determine as being male or female - or care. The combination was supposed to create a 'musical, sensorial and mental ambience', according to one of the Ops' agents who was into this shit. Wufei found it unutterably pretentious and annoying, and he hoped that wasn't obvious in the small smile he was forcing onto his face. Heero was shifting next to him behind his neutral mask, bored after the first five minutes with that very special boredom you felt when everybody else around you seemed to be having fun in a way you couldn't really comprehend, and you weren't too sure you wanted to. Wufei was familiar with it. He leaned back towards his partner. He'd better give Heero a mission, a task, or he was going to simmer like that all evening.

"Watch the dancers. Pick a couple that don't move too dramatically and remember how they do it. We'll probably have to imitate them at some point."

"Tonight?"

"No. We'll dance something slower later, just for show. Then we'll leave." He could almost feel the slight lift of Heero's spirits when he said 'leave'.

Heero dutifully scrutinized the dancers, picking a couple of young men on the basis of their height and build which were similar to their own, Wufei noted with wry amusement, since his description of 'not moving too dramatically' had been a bit too subjective for Heero to appreciate. The couple - obviously a couple - was dancing in a way that- Wufei flicked a hand against Heero's, then indicated, with a fleeting look, another couple, slightly older and a bit more staid, who weren't making quite such a spectacle of themselves. Heero's eyes fixed on them discreetly, memorizing their every move with the studiousness and lack of feeling one would expect of a vid recorder.

This kept Heero busy for another ten minutes. That would be enough time for him to be able to memorize and mimic every one of the two men's movements and expressions, as well as lip-read their conversation and commit it to memory. Then he got twitchy again. Wufei was feeling it too. He had to force himself not to glance at his watch. It was only ten forty. They should stay and look like they were enjoying themselves for at least another half hour. He was a bit more patient with long watches and surveillance duty than Heero was, but the music and the cigarette smoke were making his head buzz and his eyes tear, and the beer had brushed his skin with a sticky heat. Yes, this was definitely a mission. The possibility of actually enjoying any of this was remote. Wufei kept his eyes and brain focused on the club, but let a part of his mind dwell on the courses he was going to start tomorrow, a pleasant distraction. First period was dialectics in-

Heero stood up, leaned towards him. "Bathroom," he announced shortly. Wufei gave him a warning glance. He knew that was hardly all Heero was going to be doing. Don't get caught sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, he indicated with a fierce flex of fingers on Heero's and a glare. They couldn't afford that. Heero nodded reluctantly, a bare dip of his head that would be lost in the lights that were beginning to swirl and dance around them as the music and the atmosphere picked up in pace.

Wufei's mind went back to the preliminary objective. Was Exeter watching the dancers on the floor from that one-way glass? Or was he talking over business with Romain? Or were they fucking each other's brains out? Intel, from a talkative waiter, indicated this happened on occasion. Wufei caught movement from the top of the stairs. Pels. The bodyguard had just stepped out of the discreet door to Exeter's lounge. Dressed in a bulky jacket, despite the rising human heat from the dance floor. He couldn't tell what she was packing. She beckoned the man below her, who turned and walked up a few steps to listen. Wufei lifted his glass and read her lips over the rim. '- a new bottle of Langavulin. They've run out.' Oh. He automatically tracked the guard’s routine trip to the bar-

And nearly choked on his beer as a scene, caught from the corner of his eyes, slammed into his awareness. His fingers darted towards a holster he wasn't wearing.

After a second look at the two figures halfway across the room, he brought his alarm under control. The man had a hand on Heero's chest, but it was light, barely fingertips, not a restraining move. The stranger's back was towards Wufei, so he couldn't tell what the man was saying to his partner, but from the tilt of his hips and the slight flex of the fingers against Heero's clinging shirt, he could pretty much guess. Heero's face was on neutral, neither his forbidding scowl nor his deadened expression. It confirmed that the man was an annoyance rather than a threat. Wufei watched carefully. Normally Heero attacked any person who touched him like that, either with a deadly scowl, harsh words, a shove or worse. There was a delicate tension in his body. Wufei could measure it all the way from where he was sitting. Heero wasn't quite sure how to deal with the situation and so was letting it evolve, waiting for an opening. His eyes flickered towards Wufei, looking for suggestions. Wufei thought very quickly, then let the hand holding his glass dip slightly, touch his own chest.

Heero promptly turned towards the man who was, Wufei reminded himself pityingly, only trying to make friends and flirt a little. The words were clear on Heero's lips: 'Sorry, I need to go. I'm with him.' His chin jolted towards Wufei, and then he brushed the man out of his path and headed back towards the table.

His rejected flirt looked at Heero's receding back, slightly stunned. Early twenties, Caucasian, sandy hair in a loose pony-tail- stop filling in a crime-sheet description, Chang, he's not a suspect, he was only chatting him up. Puzzled gaze traveled, glanced ahead of Heero and widened in comprehension as he caught Wufei looking back. The man smiled apologetically and shrugged. Indicating he didn't know Heero was taken, Wufei presumed. He nodded in return, hoping that was a normal reaction, and resumed watching Heero make his way through the crowd, unmolested this time.

In the back of Wufei's mind, the image of Heero walking towards him suddenly changed. For the briefest instant, this was no longer 'Heero', his partner, the man he battled with, his brother-in-arms. Maybe he'd borrowed the sandy-haired man's vision for a second. He was looking at Heero as a stranger would; noticing, somehow for the first time, the way Heero really moved, lithe and graceful but not dangerous, really, not unless you knew the potential in that deadly body. Heero could pass for eighteen. His face had never had any kind of baby softness to it, even after you'd discounted hard eyes and looks. But he still looked young, his features surprisingly delicate around the chin, the mouth soft and full. His eyes were large, deep blue and captivating, peeking out from behind the thick bangs. His body was...solid, even though it was still rather slender. The proportions were perfect. Wufei found himself watching the way he walked, a flutter of something undefined stirring in his gut, a growing warmth as he remembered those were, in fact, his fatigues Heero was wearing. Muscles rippled under the cloth, tighter than usual; he moved quickly, poised, not a motion wasted or out of place, a spare elegance, long-fingered hands loose at his side.

Eyebrow lifted in question at Wufei's scrutiny.

Enough beer for tonight. Two glasses in three quarters of an hour, and he was losing his focus. He'd have to build up his tolerance quickly; they'd be here longer in the future, when they would be working more seriously to catch Exeter's attention.

Heero slid down behind the table again, eyebrow still raised in a question mark. Wufei shook his head minutely. By the time they got home, if Heero still remembered the incident and asked him about it, he'd have some excuse ready. Something about checking if Heero walked too much like a soldier for his cover story, maybe. He'd avoid saying that he'd suddenly and quite unexpectedly noticed that his partner - the one he'd known, had been working with, and had sex with on a regular basis on and off for the last two years - was, in fact, remarkably attractive. For a man, of course.

No, that didn't matter, actually. Heero's looks, the way he moved, his intensity, his unassuming grace...it went beyond gender. His partner was attractive. And it was rather strange, after all their time together, that Wufei had never noticed. It had just never even entered his mental head space. Even when he'd assessed his colleague after lunch, earlier, it had been perfectly clinical, weighing how others would react, not Wufei himself...With an inward shrug, he buried the thought away. Not relevant to the present situation. Or indeed, any situation in their lives. It did give them one more good shot at actually acing their mission, though. He didn't think Heero had to be able to dance well, or provide fascinating conversation, to prick Exeter's interest.

"Can we leave now?" Heero said, putting his fist in front of his mouth. He looked uncomfortable. The man touching him had heightened his already raised stress levels, jumpstarted by the mission parameters, the thugs at the back door, the noise and constant motion around them.

"Let's finish our drinks, dance at least once, and then we can leave." Wufei sighed. The smoke had killed his taste buds. A good thing in a way, since now he couldn't really taste the bitterness of the beer.

"Dance?" Heero's lack of enthusiasm was obvious. His eyes picked out his former 'tutors', who were now sitting down in an alcove and making out, Wufei noticed.

"Yes. At least once. They should be playing something slow soon."

Heero's eyebrows arched but he didn't ask any questions. He finished his beer with quick, efficient sips, and then crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the DJ in his booth above the dance floor as if to get the man to hurry up and put something slow on soon by sheer will-power.

The songs had been flowing one into the other - proof, in Wufei's mind, that they were pretty much clones, and lacked any kind of artistic merit or inventiveness to them whatsoever. But at one point there was a pause. Then a brush of music, a chord on a synthesizer, very light, a distant rumble. People began to sit down. Some headed towards the bars, while couples stood up, pulling each other towards the dance floor. Wufei didn't recognize the music, of course, but gathered that this was their cue. Maybe Heero's glare had worked on the DJ on a subconscious level, he thought, amused. He touched Heero's hand and motioned him towards the floor.

The lights were dimming and beginning to flicker. Good, that would cover any lack of skill they had. They weren't expected to dance like gods, not at all, but it mustn't be obvious that this was a big first for either of them. The distant rumble was still shaking the floor, the music was loud. Another sound started, a trickle of insane laughter rising above the chords. Then a very rapid tick, which made Wufei think of a detonator counting down. He turned, placed his hands on Heero's shoulder and waist, twisted under his partner's fingers so they rested more firmly on his hip, and closed the distance between them.

_Wir teilen Zimmer und das Bett_

_Brüderlein komm und sei so nett_

Pre-colony, Wufei realized after the first few words; that music was popular in the darker edges of their generation. Since it was old, and thus considered classical music, it escaped the genteel ban that the new peacetime culture had imposed on music studios and radios. After the war, society wanted its music to be clean, wholesome, non-violent and enlightening. The song was in German, a language he didn't know, but from the tone of the singer, and something...

_Brüderlein komm fass mich an_

_rutsch ganz dicht an mich heran_

...in the way the singer was almost whispering, or that small trickle of coos and insane laughter still running in the background of the track... Wufei gathered that clean, wholesome, non-violent and enlightening this probably wasn't. What had Relena and company expected? The children of war needed to express themselves, purge themselves. This didn't seem very war-like, but it sounded...unhealthy, erotic and alluring. No wonder it was popular.

A trickle of synth and the sound broke. A rhythm erupted from the breathy pause at the end of the words. Hard, pulsing. Faster than he'd thought it'd be, though still slower than the previous dance music.

_Vor dem Bett ein schwarzes Loch_

_und hinein fällt jedes Schaf_

The voice had dropped half an octave, very raw and male compared to the previous androgynous singers. It throbbed with the beat, violent and smirking.

_bin schon zu alt und zähl sie doch_

_denn ich find keinen Schlaf_

Not quite what Wufei had expected. He'd thought it would be a slow, sappy love song requiring minimal movement. Apparently that wasn't the style of Désirs. The people around them had started to move with the music. Slowly, clinging to each other, but also swaying and thrusting to the beat. Wufei realized that he and Heero were plastered together, pressed against each other by the hypnotic crash of rhythm, the stifling warmth, the sweat and smells around them. Moving in rough time to the music.

Another trickle of synthesizers, taunting. Crude. The voice was deep, cloying, with a slight sneer that covered dark desires, forbidden yearnings.

_Unterm Nabel im Geäst_

_wartet schon ein weisser Traum_

Wufei's hips swung. His hand smoothed the dark blue shirt under his fingers unconsciously. Their bodies picked up the rhythm naturally, with the precise reaction of men who controlled their movements to a fault, eyes picking apart and analyzing the other dancers' steps and imitating them. Can't let the hostiles notice they were unused to this. Wufei automatically controlled his stance, the set of his spine, the curve of his neck; relaxed. At ease. I belong here.

_Brüderlein komm halt dich fest_

_und schüttel mir das Laub vom Baum_

A part of him was registering the way Heero was moving against him, but fortunately they were both too much in mission mode to really care, or, in Wufei's case, be mortified at the display they were making. Not that they were going to stand out much in comparison to those around them. There was a couple in his line of sight...Wufei kept himself under rigid control, clamping down on the part of him wondering, horrified, if he and Heero would be expected to dance so lewdly in the future to attract Exeter's attention. Really - don't pay attention. But - focus. But the only reason that is not sex is because they have clothes on! Who cares. The warrior and the prim scholar had a quick tussle in Wufei's mind, and the warrior won out. It usually did, these days.

A tightening of fingers against his back. He followed Heero's deliberate glance. The, ah, 'tutors' were back on the floor. They were dancing a bit more calmly than some of the others present. The two Heero had been imitating until now were near their alcove, on the edge of the floor. And they were making out with pretty much the same enthusiasm as they had been sitting down, almost ignoring the music. Heero turned towards Wufei again, eyebrow raised in a question.

_Spiel ein Spiel mit mir_

_gib mir deine Hand und_

The music wound up to a breathless pause in the background, the voice almost flat, toneless. Wufei hesitated, torn between making sure he and Heero looked like a proper couple, while recoiling from hampering their field of vision the way kissing would imply. They were far away from the press of dancers, off to one side, near the wall, safe enough, but the warrior's instincts were not easily quelled.

Drums.

_piel mit mir_

_ein Spiel_

_spiel mit mir ..._

The music had crashed from its breathless peak into an abyss of pulsing sensuality, and Wufei realized the first stanzas had been a warm-up. The synth was falling and rising in a crescendo like a lover's caressing hand, pausing and teasing before plunging further. The throbbing beat was a lot less subtle. Okay, they could either move like they were fucking each other on the dance floor, or they could take the making out option.

_...ein Spiel_

_spiel mit mir_

_weil wir alleine sind..._

A rather embarrassing consideration popped into his mind, tipping the scales; Heero and Wufei indulged in little to no foreplay normally. Not efficient. The way some of these people were dancing - rubbing, grinding, thrusting - would probably- well, they were young, and had a fairly low sensitivity threshold to that kind of stimulus, seeing how they normally screwed each other. Heero's control over his body was exquisite, that wasn't an issue, but Wufei wasn't sure that he himself would be able to- and he really didn't want to- to- 

Kissing was safer.

_spiel mit mir_

_ein Spiel_

_Vater Mutter Kind_

The music sighed and stilled, pausing as if to listen to the laughter and cooing at its back. The beat took a breather, to let the synth soothe and caress, but only for a moment. Wufei brushed Heero's mouth with his own, after a last quick glance around. No one near, no threat. They pressed their lips together. Down south, their hips seemed to have picked up the new seductive, sordid rhythm and were doing their own thing. No matter. Looked natural, probably. Their bodies were completely familiar with each other, fitting together in a way that could not be faked or imitated, obviously long intimate. It would help them blend in. Wufei twisted his head to get a better angle for the kiss and noticed a flash of blue as Heero snuck another glance at the dancers.

_Dem Brüderlein schmerzt die Hand_

_er dreht sich wieder an die Wand_

_der Bruder hilft mir dann und wann_

_damit ich schlafen kann_

Something wet and foreign brushed Wufei's lips as they pressed against Heero's. His partner had squeezed him slightly, a warning that he was about to do something, but Wufei still started. The tongue touched his lips again, gently, tentatively, almost shyly. Wufei flicked the word shy out of the previous thought. Heero wouldn't know shy if it ran him over in a Gundam. He was merely being careful not to startle Wufei and get himself laid out by a lightening fast punch to the gut. Wufei groaned inwardly. He was ready to bet that the men they were imitating were indulging in a little tongue play. And Heero was nothing if not thorough in following instructions.

_Spiel ein Spiel mit mir_

_gib mir deine Hand und_

The music gathered itself into another breathless pause, like the instant before climax, and Wufei realized he'd opened his mouth before really making a conscious decision about it.

_spiel mit mir_

_ein Spiel ..._

The music plunged back into its thrusting, pounding rhythm and Heero's tongue brushed the tip of his own. The synth purred and caressed and teased. Wufei put his hand on Heero's jaw, an instinctive move to give him some control, or an illusion of it. His other hand rested on the fall of Heero's hips as their bodies moved together in a rhythm they had tamed long ago. Memories of gasps, sweat, trickles of pain highlighting pulsing pleasure, fluttered in the back of Wufei's mind where he couldn't swat them away. Heero's hands slid down to the small of his back, flexing his fingers to the back and forth of hips.

_spiel mit mir_

_ein Spiel_

The beat was pounding through his head, his body. He snuck a glance at the room around them as discreetly as he could. No one watching them, apparently, though his field of vision was very narrow. His tongue traveled up the side of Heero's, swept the corner of his lips. They'd never done this before. They fucked each other on a weekly basis but they never kissed like this first.

Because it was intimate. It was something they didn't do.

_spiel mit mir_

_weil wir alleine sind_

Another quick glance around as their lips broke apart a fraction, breath warm in each other's mouths. The bodyguard was still at the foot of the stairs. Wufei could tell, from the angle of Heero's head, that he was keeping an eye on the men at the exit. Then their lips fused again, and Wufei's tongue idly flickered out.

Intimate? Was this really intimate? The mouth, the one he was licking from the inside, was one that went down on him occasionally. Just how much more intimate than that could you get?

_spiel mit mir_

_ein Spiel_

The blowjob was just sex though. This...

Wufei jerked away from the breathless little uncertainty that was threading its way through his focus. He knew where this was going; the way the beat was driving through them like hammers, nailing them to the sensuous synth cords. The way Wufei was starting to react to the thrusting against his groin. Sex was definitely going to happen at some point tonight. A good, clean fuck. They'd planned to anyway, as practice for their cover stories.

_spiel mit mir_

_ein Spiel_

Another quick glance around - someone watching! Oh, the sandy-haired man from earlier. As Wufei focused - Heero's tongue flicked at the corner of his lips - the man turned away, looking at other dancers wistfully.

_spiel mit mir_

_ein Spiel_

Lips moved against Wufei's as Heero sucked slightly, drawing little spikes of feeling along the sensitive tip of Wufei's tongue.

Heero's hands slipped further down, pressing Wufei's ass into the motion, lifting him slightly so that their groins ground together, arousals hardening and pulsing in sympathy with the singer's ragged words.

_spiel mit mir_

_ein Spiel_

Wufei's mind was clear, distinct from his quickening body. The mission was still uppermost in his mind, and Heero's too, because it would take a lobotomy and electroshock therapy for Heero Yuy to forget about a mission. This was part of their cover, and that reality was an anchor in his mind. Wufei observed, almost clinically, the way his hands grasped Heero's face and shoulder, getting more contact in each other's mouths. His cock was hard now, and his heart was hammering, but it was a distant distraction for the warrior who stayed watchful and alert. He caught a flicker of blue from Heero's eyes as the latter took another quick peek at the enemy, then the other dancers. Wufei hoped he wouldn't find anything too extreme to imitate. This was quite enough.

_spiel mit mir_

_ein Spiel_

...In the back of Wufei's mind, a pulse had started; it sang to the rhythm of the music, darkly sensuous, ominously thrilled. He didn't quell it; they were young, hot blooded, and rubbing and thrusting up against each other like tigers in heat, it'd be weird not to react. Just go with the flow, everyone else was. Go with the flow and rise above it. Let it simmer where it could do no harm. Ignore the hard-on pressing against Heero's, the ripples of pleasure along his skin, the taste of beer and someone else's mouth.

_Vater Mutter Kind_

The music trickled down. The kiss broke as the last, departing chord echoed like a broken whisper. The partners panted, bodies stilling.

"Can we leave now?" Heero asked tightly.

"Good idea." A mental check list quickly totaled up in Wufei's mind. They'd been to the club, they'd had a look around, they'd seen what was expected of them, they'd had a drink and danced. And they were now in no condition to go and sit down and pretend to have fun, or, gods forbid, dance some more. They could control their bodies, their training was more rigid than any hormones when it had to be, but that might look odd. And it was unnecessary. The warrior was satisfied that they'd done their job. It allowed him to listen to the dark, writhing, sensual thing inside that wanted out, out of the smoke, the crowds, the mission-related situation, and go somewhere private.

Heero grabbed both their jackets and dragged him across the floor. Wufei thought he caught a conspiratorial grin from the waiter as they passed him, heading towards the door. The air was oppressive with smoke, the smell of sweat and perfume wafting on the heat rising from the dancers, moving to a new, seductive rhythm starting. Wufei forced himself to move casually, look relaxed, but he couldn't wait to be outside. He'd take a few deep breaths of air, rid himself of the club's ambiance that clung to his skin and hair like the smell of cigarettes and the sheen of sweat under his tunic. Then he'd get his body under control. They had a bus trip of ten minutes to get back to their apartment.

The grip on his hand was bone-breaking. Heero's muscles flowed and rippled beneath Wufei's tight fatigues. Wufei reminded himself that they were no longer teenage terrorists; they were seventeen year old Preventers. It wouldn't do to end up fucking each other's lights out two alleys down from the club. That wasn't professional. Or proper. They'd get back to their bed first. Their bed...

Almost outside. They were walking swiftly through the lobby, the coat check stand empty on a weekday -

"Hey, kids! Hold up!"

Wufei ran straight into his partner as the other twisted around like a startled panther. He turned, catching his balance. 

Heero's hand ground the bones of his fingers against each other.

Raphaël Romain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is "Spiel Mit Mir" by Rammstein. If I was writing this fic today I would find a better way to get that in than putting in all the lyrics ^^; oh well, live and learn. (Astute readers, German speakers and Rammstein lovers might have an idea why this song goes with this scene)


	23. Cover Stories, Part III

"A person needs a face; a tree needs bark."  
\--- Mandarin Proverb

 

Raphaël Romain.

The ex-legionnaire was walking towards them swiftly. He'd not come from the club's main floor but from a side-door near the coat check stand. Jeans and a sport jacket - he could be carrying concealed, Wufei automatically noted, and dropped back a bit and sideways, giving Heero and himself a free field of action. They were in the lobby of the club, between the entrance to the dance floor from which vibrations and thumps spilled out, and the double doors leading to the street. There was a bouncer there, Wufei remembered. If they made a run for it and Romain shouted, the man would try to stop them.

Heero's fingers twitched, trying to free his hand, but Wufei kept a hold of it; didn't want to look suspicious.

"No need to run off. Or is there?" The man smiled sensuously, casting an amused glance down at their groins. Wufei felt himself color and didn't suppress the reaction. Romain would think it embarrassment, rather than fury at the man's crass nosiness.

Romain stroked his chin with his thumb. His fingers were well- manicured but callused. He probably kept up his marksmanship. Dark hair was cut conservatively, neat bangs over hard, brown eyes. His look was a bit at odds with his face; angular, hard planes that had been withered and baked in the suns of Sudan and Malaysia, where he'd served in a mercenary group after the Alliance had disbanded the Legion. He'd retired from his militaristic career a decade ago. Now in his forties, he was comfortably set in both Exeter's affairs and occasionally his bed. Wufei noted the strength in the muscled frame. He had half a head over Heero. His body spoke of power and endurance, but he didn't seem overly aggressive.

"My name's Raphaël," he introduced himself, pronouncing his name with the French inflection. "I work for Andrev, he's the owner of this club. We noticed you two dancing. You're new here, aren't you?"

"Yes," Wufei replied, keeping his voice as casual as he could. "We arrived from Earth just recently. We're studying at the University here."

"Really? Students?" Romain's voice was not in the slightest bit doubtful, only curious. "Hm, if you've just arrived, you've probably not heard that Andrev sometimes invites people over to his other club. Would you be interested?"

Heero's hand flexed in anticipation, crushing Wufei's fingers a bit.

"Tonight?" Wufei let his eyes go a bit wide.

"Sure! It's barely eleven! Night's not even started yet."

"What other club?" Heero asked, probably prompted by the fact that Romain's eyes had flickered over him curiously.

"It's a place twenty minutes from here. We have a van, and there'll be others coming with us. It's on invitation only. No cover fee, though drinks are charged. It's very select." He let that dangle in front of them.

Wufei made a show of turning towards Heero, as if consulting him with a glance, though he already knew what he had to say.

"Hmm, I don't know...maybe this weekend, but not tonight, if you don't mind," he refused slowly.

A spasm crushed his fingers again, though Heero did not express his surprise any other way. Romain's eyebrows arched.

"You sure? Other people will be coming, so you'll, ah, be quite safe."

"Erm, thanks." Wufei wasn't particularly worried about getting into a van with Romain to go somewhere he wanted to go, but his alter-ego would be expected to be more cautious. "We appreciate the invitation, but we have courses early tomorrow morning. We were going to call it a night. Sorry."

Romain studied him. He looked a bit surprised, but the hard planes of his face were difficult to read accurately. "That's okay, kids. I can't claim to have ever had a university life, but I remember what reveille was like when I'd hit the bottle a bit too much the night before. So you'll be here again this weekend?"

"Sure. We heard this was one of the best clubs in town. For, well, couples."

"That it is. Okay- what're your names?"

"Chang Lin, and this is Yuy Summers."

"Right, well, I'll keep an eye out, and see you on Saturday, maybe." Romain gave them a pleasant if slightly dismissive smile, and turned back towards the discreet door near the coat-check stand.

Wufei took deep breaths as soon as the club's double doors closed behind them, but it was no longer to get his hard-on under control. That had rather taken care of itself. They walked away from the bored-looking bouncer in silence, heading towards the bus-stop.

Heero said nothing, but Wufei could almost feel the question pressing him like the fingers still pressing his hand. Wondering why they'd squandered a chance, maybe their only chance, of getting invited to the mansion and finishing the mission.

"That was too soon," Wufei finally muttered, after they had traveled a few minutes away from the club. Exeter had caught two undercover cops and a Preventer trying to infiltrate his club and his mansion, no way would he pick up two strangers like that without a minimal amount of checking up.

"And...it was wrong," Wufei added, the back of his neck prickling. He'd let his intuition guide him, prompt him to refuse; there had been something off in that situation.

Suddenly it struck him. Romain had approached them in the deserted lobby. Normally he approached the guests at the bar or with the waiter at a table, so one of the club employees could vouch for him when he extended the invitation.

Romain had wanted them to accept where there were no witnesses.

Heero let loose a slight hiss of breath, almost a sigh, as he probably came to the same conclusion. His fingers tightened again, warningly.

"You're right. Tail."

"Fuck." Wufei tried to listen for footsteps behind them, but he couldn't hear them above the brush of their own boots against asphalt. No matter; he trusted Heero. His partner could tell someone was following them from the faint prickle of a hostile gaze on his back a hundred meters away. He was better than a radar when it came to things like this.

They walked a few more meters in silence, still holding hands, just like a normal couple on their way home. Maybe they really had grabbed Exeter's interest, and he was just having someone follow them home to check up on them? No. It was too soon, they'd hardly done anything to stand out yet. Had they? And Romain had invited them out in the lobby, away from the other clubbers...Failure ate like acid in Wufei's mind, his memory scouring over the evening. What had they done wrong? How had they blown their cover so soon? Man, Sam was going to have an aneurysm over this. Talk about a waste of time, money and effort to set up their background stories -

They both realized at the same moment that there was a good deal more at stake than getting chewed out by Foxwood.

"Play it or fight?" Heero muttered under his breath as they saw the van pull up two blocks ahead of them. It idled by the sidewalk, but no one stepped out. It was between them and the bus stop, around the corner. Fuck.

Wufei heard a scuffle of shoe on tarmac behind them. The tail - two men, maybe three - was getting closer. Closing in.

"Play it or fight?" Heero murmured again. His fingers tightened once then loosened over Wufei's, as he got ready to throw himself to the side if need be. How many in the van? Neither partner was armed, of course. Play it or fight?

"Play it," Wufei decided, hoping he hadn't condemned them to death. He caught Heero looking at him, assessing, but his partner did not question his decision. No need for him to do so; Wufei already was. The instinct to try to keep up the bluff had no basis in logic that he could see...Maybe something in Romain's demeanor as he'd left them earlier. But if he was wrong, he would be placing Heero and himself in a position they would have a hard time fighting their way out of.

The van doors opened as they passed it, and three men jumped out and shoved them bodily into an alley between two buildings opposite the van doors. Wufei shouted in feigned surprise. Heero was silent, probably too busy stilling his reflexes. Someone clamped a hand on Wufei's face - missing his mouth in the hustle, but the gun that was suddenly pressing against his ribs was warning enough to keep silent.

The alley was clean and free of garbage. This was L3, not some dirtside town, or L2. A chainlink fence at the end of it blocked it off from other alleys between the buildings. Wufei and Heero found themselves backed up against it at gun point. They wouldn't do it here, Wufei reminded himself savagely, quelling his reflexes to fight and kill; they wouldn't want to deal with bodies, not this close to the club. They'd get the partners into the van and drive them somewhere, maybe the same place the other three men were killed, near the recycling plant.

The two who'd been following them on foot turned into the alley and walked up to the three men holding the partners at gunpoint. One of the former was Romain. He had his hands in his jeans' pockets and he was frowning. Wufei thought he looked puzzled and anxious, not murderous. A cautious relief flickered in Wufei's heart. His intuition had been trying to tell them that they still had a chance of bluffing their way out of this. It seemed to find itself confirmed by the man's demeanor.

"What the hell is this?" Wufei snapped, making sure he sounded as scared as he could manage. Heero, wisely, said nothing. "What do you guys want with us?"

Romain just stared at them, first at Heero for a long minute, then at Wufei. He looked uncertain. Then he turned away without a word and walked to the entrance of the alley, hooking the receiver of a slim phone in his ear.

Wufei chanced one glance at Heero. His partner's head was down, but his eyes, hidden by the rich fall of his messy bangs, were riveted on Romain's profile as the man dialed a number. Good, Heero could hopefully keep track of the call, figure out what Romain was planning, while Wufei provided the distraction.

"People saw us leave the club," he said, loudly, letting his voice tremble. The eyes of the men holding them at gunpoint twitched towards him. One of them motioned with his gun and Wufei let himself fall back against the chainlink fence with a frightened gasp. The warrior let a moment of pleased surprise flutter through him; he was a better actor than he'd thought. Nothing like a little pressure to bring out hidden talents. He quickly tried to remember the expressions and body language of people he'd seen in similar circumstances - namely criminals and OZ soldiers he himself had held at gunpoint in the past.

"We-we talked with the waiter, he knows who we are," he added, voice low but pleading, letting the words stutter. At the entrance to the alley, Romain glanced back at him. He was talking very softly into the phone and he looked worried, gesturing angrily at them, a distracted movement the person on the other end of the line could not see.

Wufei continued to plead, his mouth on automatic, probably not making much sense, but then he wouldn't be expected to in these circumstances. He started a bit as he felt Heero's hand slip into his. Romain was nodding on the phone, his conversation visibly wrapping up. Fingers squeezed his. Wufei glanced at him. Heero's face was on neutral, unreadable, but his tension had dropped considerably, and he no longer looked like he was a fraction of a second away from killing everyone in that alley who wasn't his partner. This was further confirmed when he released Wufei's hand, and then slipped his arm around Wufei’s shoulders, the gesture of a comforting boyfriend - full marks for improv, Wufei noted distractedly - a hindrance to their mobility that he would never have allowed himself if they were about to fight for their lives.

Reassured, Wufei let himself be shoved into the van when Romain gave his men the all-clear.

 

 

Wufei covertly scrutinized the walls of the cellar room, unwilling to take things at face value. He was too used to being caught, caged and kept as a Gundam Pilot to convince himself this was normal rather than some form of elaborate trap. Where were the guards with the itchy trigger finger and the ugly light of revenge in their eyes? The cameras? The bars? The handcuffs? The drugs? The pain?

They'd been shoved around a bit, but it had all been remarkably gentle, well, if you had the kind of standards Wufei had. He was trying to keep in mind how Chang Lin would be reacting to all this; the sight of weapons, the hard, watchful look in their guards' eyes, Romain's weighing glance, and the silence. No one had said anything in the van, or when they had changed vehicle in a deserted building site, or when they had parked in an underground garage. After a while, Wufei had stopped pleading and demanding an explanation; his throat was getting sore and the sound of his voice was shredding his own nerves. His flight-or-fight instincts kept telling him that _any second now_ he'd get shoved to his knees with a cold press of metal against the back of his head and bang! Instead, he was firmly herded through the garage, up a flight of stairs, into a small room with monitor feeds and consoles. The pictures on the screen, particularly of the drive-way, were familiar. That's when he realized they were in Exeter's mansion. The question 'Why?!' exploded into his mind; such a risk for Exeter, to have brought them here. The question was immediately answered when one of the men present, who'd been watching the screens, stood up and uncovered a particularly bulky machine on one side of the room. Wufei had felt a wave of tension run through the hand that was still holding his, as he and Heero realized it was a retinal scanner, and that Romain was going to be checking their identities more thoroughly than anyone at Ops had ever imagined.

But that made no sense, Wufei thought, glaring at the cellar's metal door. Their alter-egos would not have their scans anywhere in the system. The identity cards and student IDs, fingerprints and pictures that Romain's men had collected would be what was needed to confirm they were the people they claimed to be. Retinal scans were useless. Hell, even if they were cops, they probably wouldn't have their scans in the system unless they'd been in charge of a high-level security operation at some point. So why had Romain taken this unusual step? One that had forced him to take two potential hostiles to his home ground?

It didn't actually matter that he'd scanned them. Heero and Wufei's retinal patterns were no more available than information on their home address or previous occupation. As far as the world was concerned, the Heero Yuy and Chang Wufei who worked in the Preventer's Primary Intervention Division didn't exist. But Wufei didn't like the feeling of uncertainty the strange move had engendered. He glanced around the walls again, hunching over, senses wary like an animal sensing a trap. In both his careers, pilot and Preventer, what you didn't know was very likely to kill you.

Heero was sitting next to him, still and unmoved, as if carved from stone. The cellar was full of boxes and old furniture, including a double bed with a stained mattress. It was the only place to sit. The guards had shoved them down on it when they'd led them to the underground room. Then they'd left the partners alone, with a last injunction to shut up and behave if they wanted to get out of this in one piece.

Wufei took one last discreet glance around. He couldn't see any cameras. Would they have any in a cellar? Paranoia, cultivated in a few OZ interrogation rooms, would not let him take a chance. He pretended to rub his arms as if cold and in shock, then he swung his feet up on the bed and inched over to Heero, put his arms around his shoulders and buried his face in the crook of his neck. Heero had gone as rigid as a board for an instant, before understanding what he intended. A hand - awkward, since it was safe to say he'd never done this before - patted Wufei's shoulder in reassurance, before Heero twisted a bit to embrace him comfortingly, masking his mouth from any potential watchers.

"What do they want with us?" Wufei asked, out loud, letting his voice quiver.

"Don't know." Heero's words sounded stiff and forced, but Wufei knew that shock did strange things to people. It wouldn't seem faked.

Then Heero spoke again in a low whisper, lips nearly unmoving where they brushed Wufei's neck.

"Romain called Exeter. They were told we were coming." Wufei stiffened, even though it was obvious something was up from the way Romain had reacted. Shit! How had they known?! "But apparently they were not given all that many details. They're not sure we're the men they were waiting for. Too young, and not what they expected. Romain wanted to kill us anyway. Exeter stopped him, I think."

Yes, that would fit his profile, Wufei estimated.

"They're holding us here until they can get confirmation from their informant, whoever that is. What do we do now?"

Wufei licked his lips. Good question. He glanced over Heero's shoulder. This wasn't a prison, it was the cellar. The door was metal but the lock was crap. Maxwell could open it just by sneezing on it. Heero probably wouldn't even bother doing that.

"How many outside?" he whispered. He'd heard the scuffle of shoes on concrete, the scrape of a chair or something being pushed back, and low voices.

"Three, from the sound of it."

"So they do consider us a threat."

"Yes."

They could have an army out of earshot too; waiting for Heero and Wufei to betray themselves, confirm that they were plants by trying to break out.

Well, that was the risk. But on the other hand, they were here, in sight of their main objective. This could go one of two ways. Their captors would be going back to their informant, trying to get confirmation, and they'd also be checking up on the partners' backgrounds to see if they were valid. So either Exeter would pierce their cover and they'd end up taking that drive out to the recycling plant - Romain wouldn't do it here, not in the mansion. Or their cover would hold and...what? Wufei's mind, cold, analytical and perfectly detached from the death threat hanging over them, went over all known information on Exeter and the profile the Preventers had put together. This was L3; Exeter had the local cops pretty much in his pocket. If Exeter believed they were students, he'd probably release them with a few very realistic threats, and the knowledge that if they went to the police, he'd be able to quell the investigation. There was no real risk for him, so he probably wouldn't kill them offhand. It wasn't his style.

But one thing Exeter certainly wouldn't do, would be to invite them back to his private club at a later date. So whatever happened, this was it. This was the first and last time they'd be in this mansion, at least if they didn't break their way back in later at the risk of getting caught and dropping the Preventers into hot water.

Wufei leaned back in Heero's arms. They stared at each other for a few seconds; the deadly gamble considered and agreed upon with a glance.

'You take the door and one guard, I'll take the others,' Wufei mouthed.

Heero didn't bother to nod. He was off the bed and throwing himself at the door in an instant.

One savage kick and the measly lock as well as the hinges snapped like sticks. The door, catapulted from its frame, slammed into one of the men standing behind it. Wufei was a split second behind Heero. His partner leapt on the man felled by the door, leaving the last two to Wufei. They'd been sitting on a bench, five feet away. One was trying to get his gun from his holster, stumbling away from the wall. The other was already swinging up the rifle he'd had across his knees. Wufei crashed into him, slammed him against the wall, elbow in the solar plexus. The man bent sharply forward with a grunt. The rifle slipped from his hands. Wufei grabbed his neck in a head lock, twisting his victim so that his torso shielded the Preventer. The other thug had his gun raised, but he hesitated to shoot at his friend for that one fatal second. The gun wavered, dipped. Its owner - beefy, solid muscle, a head taller than Wufei - took a step forward, towards the apparently slender young man, to rip him away from his colleague. Wufei used the hold on the other's neck for leverage and kicked high, a vicious scything blow with their combined weight behind it. His boot met the last man's head with a solid crunch. The goon fell as if poleaxed. The man in the headlock was gasping in painful gulps of air, fumbling at the rifle's strap that had caught on his wrist, trying to push Wufei away with his other hand. A short, savage punch to the gut and the man folded with a retching gasp. Wufei slammed an elbow down on the exposed neck as his victim doubled over. The man fell to the floor like a sack of meat.

Heero was already finished with his man and was positioned at the door leading to the garage, listening. Wufei grabbed one of the weapons from the floor and ran to the far door at the end of the hallway, which opened to the rest of the house. No noises or cries of alarm; it seemed the possibility of their escape had not been planned for. Floorplans flashed in his mind's eye. He remembered that there were security cameras in the garage, and there would be some inside the mansion, but if Heero and he were careful, they could reach their objective without being seen. Their aim was Romain's office, where he and Exeter did the criminal work and where the secured computer system, containing details of the financial transactions with the Syndicate, was kept. Exeter's office and bedroom also contained computers and safes, their informants had said, but most of the stuff there was related to Exeter's official businesses. Romain was the keeper of his dirtier secrets. That was what they were after.

Still without one word - unnecessary, they were of one mind, one lethal intent - they dragged the three men into the cellar room. A few seconds' search in the boxes turned up nothing to tie them with. Wufei hesitated. The men were out and pretty badly hurt; he expected the man he'd kicked might die, and Heero's target was breathing funny through a broken, swollen jaw. They should be out of it for long enough.

The partners fit the door back into its frame. It would pass casual inspection. More so than the absence of their three guards would. This was only a stopgap measure anyway and they knew it. This was probably going to end in an almighty mess, however they played it.

Heero scooped up one of the fallen weapons, a Kreig 552 rifle, then glanced back at him. Wufei realized he'd actually sighed out loud. He shrugged under his partner's questioning look.

"Une sent us undercover- she wanted us to do this the subtle way," Wufei explained ruefully.

Chack-clack-chack. Heero checked the rifle, the chamber and the magazine, the rattle of metal familiar and strangely thrilling.

"Subtle's not our style," he stated succinctly, letting the rifle rest against his shoulder as he headed towards the door, slipping a Magnum in the back of his belt. Wufei gripped his borrowed Kimber and followed in silent agreement.

 

 

Romain's office was large and pleasant, overlooking the mansion's small, night-cloaked park through barred and reinforced windows. It had been locked, but not with a key fortunately, since they had no lock picks. The electronic system gave up under Heero's ministrations in less than twenty seconds. The Kreig scored a dent in the elegant oak sideboard where the monitor for the secured system rested. The system was on and unlocked. Heero glanced back, a warning, and Wufei nodded in understanding, taking up a spot near the door, ears pricked. Chances were Romain had been here just minutes before and would be returning shortly. He concentrated on the silence in the mansion. It was past midnight. He could hear no one moving.

"In," Heero murmured. Wufei glanced over to where his partner was sitting. Heero had disabled the firewall and opened a link to their team in Brussels. Almost immediately, messages and command line windows started to flash up on the screen as the professional hackers working for Ops started to break through the protections set around the secured information, using the access Heero had provided for them. They would also warn Une that things were going down months earlier than expected. Wufei, at the door, spared a second to think of the look on the commander's face when she realized that the odds of them having done this quietly were minimal at best.

With the hackers and their massive computing power doing the hard work for once, Heero was free to start rifling through the filing cabinets on one side of the room, after he'd broken its lock with a vicious tug. He flipped through some papers, then just grabbed most of what he found and carried it over to Romain's scanner. Wufei saw him hesitate as he passed near the safe. That would be where they would hit the real pay dirt, but neither of them had thought that explosives or a blowtorch would make appropriate club accessories, so they had no means with which to open it.

"Yuy!" Wufei hissed, hearing footsteps in the hallway outside. Heero was a blur of movement as he swapped the files for his borrowed rifle. He pressed himself against the wall on the other side of the door, five seconds before the electronic lock was carded and the door swung open.

"-we'll contact Minsk, but I think Luxemburg is more likely to-" Exeter gasped at the sight of the files spilled on the side desk. Romain, right behind him, reached for a weapon in a shoulder holster beneath the sport's jacket he was still wearing, but Heero already had the Kreig pointed at his head. Wufei grabbed Exeter and pressed a gun to his side, a silent order to keep quiet. Heero slipped a hand beneath Romain's coat, relieved him of the gun, and shoved him into the room. He closed the door quietly behind them after a quick glance outside.

"You-" Exeter was just beginning to get over his shock. Wufei patted him down briskly, pressing the gun into his ribs in a silent threat when the man recoiled instinctively from the frisking. He could hear Heero give Romain the same treatment.

"Maintenant, on sait vraiment à qui on a affaire," Romain muttered.

"No talking," Heero ordered in his deadliest voice. Exeter paled, but Romain looked unimpressed. Wufei shoved the financier into one of the chairs in front of Romain's desk. Heero kneed Romain to the floor and ordered him to put his hands on his head. He left Wufei to watch them, and went to pick up the files and continue scanning them and downloading the copies to the Preventer system.

"Who...?" Exeter was getting over the shock. He was a tall man in his late forties, taller than Romain and sinewy thin. His long, elegant fingers were white as they tightly gripped the armrests. Brown eyes flickered between Wufei's Kimber and Romain's prostrate form. He had strong, clean-cut features and light brown hair that reminded Wufei distantly of Treize. There was some of the same self- assuredness; the thin lips narrowed and he started to stare at Wufei's face instead of his gun, as if memorizing his features with an eye towards future retaliation.

"Just how does your Lady Une think she can get away with this?" His voice was now cold and measured, all business.

Heero's smooth movements over the scanner did not falter one iota.

"This is...what did you do to the men watching you?" A flutter of anxiety passed through Exeter's eyes, disturbing his calm as he suddenly realized he might be in considerable danger himself. "I have high level contacts here, in the government and even the-" his voice had hardened again, but Romain made a hissing noise and he stopped talking.

There was silence in the room for a little while. No alarm outside yet, though Romain's cell phone did ring once. He glanced at Wufei and made no move to answer it.

Heero rifled the files, then picked up the Kreig again.

"Exeter. Do you have the code to the safe?"

The man glanced up, startled. He didn't say anything, but his eyes narrowed and his mouth took a stubborn line.

"Open it," Heero bit out.

The thin lips twisted in bitter contempt. Exeter leaned back in his chair firmly.

Wufei sighed. He walked around the man lying on the floor until he was on the side opposite from Exeter, and pointed the Kimber at Romain.

Exeter turned that icy glare on Wufei. It was measuring him to a fine degree, a businessman judging someone's grit. The Preventer returned the stare and slowly moved the Kimber until it was aiming at the back of Romain's knee. The ex-Legionnaire tensed. Wufei could feel the movement, though his eyes did not leave Exeter's. As he tightened his finger on the trigger, Exeter looked away in enraged acquiescence, put his hands on the armrests and pushed himself up.

Romain's fingers loosened over his neck, one line of tension ready to uncoil -

"Raphaël, ne bouge pas," Exeter ordered quickly.

Romain whispered a half-voiced protest, but Exeter shook his head. He walked towards the safe, the Kreig trained on him every inch of the way. Romain's heated gaze dropped to the carpet an inch from his nose. His fingers laced themselves over his neck again, whitening as they tightened their grip in frustration.

"Unlock it slowly," Heero instructed Exeter in his familiar monotone. "Then stand back and open it at arm's reach. If you make any move to reach inside it, I will kill you."

Exeter bit his lip, but did as he was told. Wufei kept the gun trained on Romain, who was glaring angrily at the floor, face white under his tan.

"How do you think you'll get out of here alive?" Exeter suddenly asked. He'd stepped away from the safe and, obeying the Kreig's mute but eloquent instructions, was returning to his chair.

"Irrelevant," Heero answered coldly, poking through the contents of the safe cautiously.

"What?" Exeter stared at his back.

"He means that they have what they came for and have gotten it out to their people," Romain explained from his position on the floor, glancing pointedly at the computer cheerfully downloading its data to the hackers' system. "How they get out, or if they get out, is not important; they've met their objectives."

"But-but-"

"Now you see what we're up against. J'aurais due les éliminer tout de suite..."

"Yes, you should have killed us when you had the chance," Wufei agreed calmly, catching enough of the words, and the tone of voice, to translate the gist.

"This is not over." Exeter turned towards Heero to spit venomously. "You pigs cannot just come in here and-"

"Andrev," Romain said quickly.

"- we will find out who you are and -"

"Andrev-"

"- don't think your precious Preventers can protect you from our org- "

"Andrev! Tais-toi!"

Exeter fell back in his chair with a hiss of frustration.

Wufei was leaning against the desk, keeping an eye on the door and on Romain. The silence of the office was only interrupted by the sound of Heero mauling the contents of the safe. He put several papers aside for scanning, but tossed most of it casually aside; bundles of cash, land titles, a small sachet of little blue pills, a quickly dismantled semi-automatic.

The beep behind him startled Wufei, though he kept eyes and gun on Romain until he'd identified it. It was from the laptop in its docking station on Romain's desk. It was connected to the main system, as secure as the rest, and undoubtedly being poked and prodded by their people in Brussels. Maybe it was a message from one of them. Keeping an eye on Romain and Exeter, he moved around the desk and moused away the screensaver. The hackers had already broken open all firewalls and password protections. The email program was up and running, with a message in the inbox, already decrypted and open for perusal, as if Romain had just recently checked it again. He probably had. The beep had been incoming email, but the current message on screen captured all of Wufei's attention.

"Listen to this." Wufei's voice was pleasant, with an acerbic undertone. Heero glanced up in mild surprise from the scanner.

"Email to Exeter, cc-ed to Romain. 'Andrev, we confirm the arrival of two visitors to your colony. They'll arrive from Earth in a couple of days' - this was sent three days ago."

"Does it give our flight number?" Heero muttered. He'd turned from the scanner to cover Romain with the Kreig while Wufei checked the PC.

"...No, but it's so detailed, it was probably an oversight," Wufei ground out. "'Expect two men, both of them Asian' - is that what threw you, Romain? I admit my colleague doesn't look very typical." Heero's eyebrows arched slightly. Romain glared at the carpet.

"'Indications are that they are young, probably in their twenties.' Hm, that didn't help either. 'They should be posing as students, part time or full time. Expect them at your club shortly. You need to take care of them asap. Our source indicates they could be break-in specialists.'" Wufei's voice had slowed down as he read, eyes widening. "'If you try to keep them away, they might decide to take a short cut. I know you don't like these methods, Andrev, but our friends insist that they be made an example. Une and her vermin may have free reign on Earth, but the colonies are ours, especially L3. We will not tolerate a move against one of our interests there. This is important, Andrev. Call me on the secured line if you need any help, and our man in Minsk is standing by too.' It's signed, Simon, no last name."

Wufei clicked a few keys to open the new email. It was in code. A program on Romain's desktop amiably inquired if he wanted to decrypt the incoming message. Wufei clicked away, indicating that he would be delighted.

"'Re: Guests'. That's us," he informed Heero. "It's the answer to Romain's demand for confirmation of our identi-... ties..."

Heero's grip tightened on the Kreig, hearing the note of shock that Wufei had uncharacteristically let slip.

Wufei read slowly.

"'Andrev, I'm sending this to you and your man Romain. Please read and respond asap. This is urgent. The information you sent us has confirmed that your guests are the ones we were expecting. But there's a big problem. They are VIPs. I hope you have them under sufficient guard. Double it anyway, just to be on the safe side.'" Wufei noted, from the corner of his eyes, the way Exeter was staring at him, then at Heero, eyes widening. "'I know these guys look like kids, I wasn't sure myself when I saw the pictures Romain sent us. But our people managed to obtain their retinal scans for comparison, and have confirmed it.'" A creak of metal as Heero's fingers tightened on the Kreig's grip. "'They are extremely dangerous. I've included something for final verification on your side; if this is indeed the men you have, neutralize them immediately. You can-" Wufei's voice did not pause or fluctuate as read the next few words, "-kill the Asian one immediately. Make the body disappear, this is crucial. They have connections, beyond Une's Rats. But if at all possible, our friends have indicated that they would like to have the other one. When you see who it is, you'll understand. Personally, I don't think this is wise. Dekim would not want us to endanger our organization even to avenge his murder." Wufei's eyes flickered to Heero. Dekim Barton...murder? Heero's face and his entire stance were entirely closed and uncommunicative, even to Wufei. "But it would score you points if you can keep this bastard alive until they send someone to fetch him. A team has been dispatched from Minsk, expect them tomorrow. Take care, my friend. Simon.'"

"What's the 'something for verification' he mentioned?" Heero asked tightly.

For answer, Wufei swung the monitor around, and then pointed the Kimber at Romain so that Heero could come and read the screen. Heero bent over, then grabbed the monitor and jerked it to get a better angle, a rough gesture that expressed his shock even though his face remained set in its usual lines. Wufei smiled grimly through the sour taste in his mouth; the view of the photocopies of their Preventer ID cards had caused a flash of undirected adrenaline to flood his system. They accompanied a point-comparison of their fingerprints and stored retinal scans, and every detail of their lives, except for their home address, bank details and what their favorite color was. Heero breathed out heavily, cutting off an abortive exclamation. Probably something along the lines of 'I'll kill that bitch Anthea for this', or at least, that's what Wufei had wanted to say. It was her job to keep this sort of information secret.

If Exeter and Romain had received that email just a bit earlier, Wufei and Heero might well be dead by now.

Heero, eyes hard and anger printed in every line of his body, moved around the desk and started hammering at the computer's keys. Exeter stared at him, eyes going over his features lit by the screen's light.

"Heero Yuy," he finally said. Heero didn't glance at him. Romain made a soft, cautioning noise deep in his throat, but his boss ignored it.

"We know who you are," Exeter continued softly. The urbane image of the businessman was tarnished by the faint, feral look in his eyes. This man wasn't a natural killer, but he had the ruthlessness it took to become one when he needed to be, and have no regrets over it. "We've been looking for you. You, and the L3 traitor who took Trowa Barton's place. Une and her lot are also in our sights. You're no more than the roaches crawling through the foundations of our house, but you've grown annoying and before long, we will crush you. But you...you and the Heavyarms's pilot...we will make you pay for what you did to Dekim. You do not harm us and get away with it."

Wufei kept his gun on Romain. The ex-Legionnaire had twisted his head, trying to catch Exeter's attention, honest worry for the man in his eyes. It wasn't necessary. Heero would not do anything to either of them without an order or a cause, and a threat wasn't cause enough for him. Wufei didn't need to turn around, he knew there would be that small quirk on Heero's lips; 'If you want me, you're welcome to try'.

As his partner, Wufei was feeling a bit less phlegmatic about this. Une's information was that Exeter wasn't a real player, just a money-mover, but his words seemed to indicate that maybe they should re-evaluate that profile, and there was no time like the present. "What- " Wufei started, but was interrupted by the alarm going off, shrill and shocking. Heero switched from the keyboard to the Kreig in a heartbeat, training it on Romain in less than a second. Wufei let his partner watch the men while he ran to the door. He couldn't hear anything over the alarms ringing. Would someone other than Romain and Exeter have the key to this office?

Romain had tensed, but Heero's speed had discouraged him from trying anything. After ten seconds the alarm cut off. Wufei, with a glance at Heero, walked over to the ex-Legionnaire and slipped his cell phone from his pocket.

"Here. Call whomever is in charge, or Pels. Tell them we have you and Exeter, and not to try anything funny."

"How _are_ you planning on getting out of here?" Romain grumbled, lifting himself on his elbows to dial. "You know we're not going to let you get away with this alive."

"I know you'd like to present our heads on a platter to your 'friends' in the hope that they'll forget how easily we got all this interesting information from your system," Wufei elaborated, agreeably. Romain snarled, but there were creases of worry around his eyes. "But I'm afraid we're not going to make it that easy for you. As soon as our team is finished with your system and the contents of your safe, we're calling the police."

"The-" Romain bit back his exclamation of surprise. Exeter stared at Wufei, brown eyes wide with shock.

"Yes. I'll tell them that you invited us here, but then you started to get pushy, and we panicked. When they get here, you'll apologize, we'll do the same, we'll all conclude it was a big misunderstanding, and we'll get the cops to drive us back to town," Wufei concluded.

Romain's eyes narrowed.

"And don't think you can accuse us of breaking in here, or being the cause of all this fuss," Wufei murmured, voice touched with steel. "First of all, if things come down to legalities, we are Preventers, that makes our word rather hard to counter in a court of law. Second, your own cameras will show you leading us through your garage at gunpoint. You won't have the time to modify those pictures. You can erase them - which will look suspicious - or we can invite the authorities to view them before we leave. That would make for a fun home video."

Exeter sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. "And just what will you tell the police once they get here? That, having been brought here by force, you decided to go the whole way and break into private information, without, I assume, anything remotely resembling a warrant? Do you think that will stand up in court?"

"Oh, I know we won't be able to get you arrested, either of you. Though I'm thinking I would like to try." Wufei tapped Romain thoughtfully on the shoulder with the Kimber as the man's fingers stayed frozen on the cell's keys. "Was it you, by the way? Did you pull the trigger on those two cops? And Santoro?"

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about," Romain sneered mockingly.

"Of course you don't."

"This isn't over."

"No. No it isn't," Wufei agreed softly.

Romain got up on his knees and placed the call, then went and sat down on the floor next to Exeter's chair. Wufei didn't object. Not even when the man twisted his head and muttered a few words in French. Wufei's grasp of the language was weak - except for some interesting vernacular picked up from Trowa - but it didn't sound like an ominous plot. More like an apology, regret...Exeter's hand dropped to Romain's shoulder and squeezed it before being clasped once more in his lap. A few whispered words in his accented French, something about no real harm done. Wufei pretended not to notice the gesture. He kept an eye on them and the door, until Heero had finished, and then he placed the call to their contact in the L3 police force, who would get things moving with the least amount of fuss.

 

 

Heero slipped on his jacket in one smooth movement, patted the Glock in its back holster with a pleased gesture, then grabbed his bags from the bedroom. He looked inordinately cheerful (for Heero). His face was its usual cold mask but he was moving around the apartment like a bird taking a last farewell flight around a suddenly open cage.

"Got everything?" he tossed over his shoulder.

"Yes," Wufei replied absently, standing immobile near the counter.

"Good. Sam said he'd do the cleanup, what there is of it. He doesn't think we were here long enough to leave many traces. All in all, that went well. Quick and efficient."

"...The man I kicked died a few hours ago." Sam had called to warn him while they were still at the police station, sorting out the details - and the lies - with their contacts, trying to wrap things up.

Heero grunted an acknowledgment without glancing up from where he was slipping the Kreig, which he'd apparently adopted, into his bag. "Is that going to be a problem?" he added as an afterthought.

"No. Exeter wants a fuss even less than we do; he knows it will ultimately not lead anywhere, not in the circumstances in which he brought us to the mansion. And he's got a lot of damage to repair with the Syndicate, he's going to be busy with that. Apparently he's decided it's safer all around to pretend nothing happened, that we were a normal couple invited to his club, and there was some misunderstanding. As for the dead man, he told the authorities that he'd fallen down the stairs."

"Oh. I'd like to meet the coroner who can be bribed to sign off on that, with your bootprint all over his face." Heero leaned over and zipped up his duffel, muttering something about 'bloody L3'. When he straightened, he'd visibly dismissed the matter. "That aside, it couldn't have gone better. We fulfilled our mission parameters, got the information, and we didn't even need to bother with all this," Heero added dryly, waving.

Wufei followed the gesture with his eyes. 'All this' was the kitchen where they'd have eaten their meals and talked about the day's courses; the couch where they'd have watched the news, curled up together; the bed where they'd have slept, and made- fucked.

Heero grabbed his duffel, then slowly put it down again. Wufei realized his partner was looking at him oddly. Damn. His lack of enthusiasm, which he himself couldn't explain, was probably obvious in every line of his stance.

"It would have been nice to have proper courses for a few months," Wufei explained briskly, trying to shake the odd listlessness that seemed to be rooting him to the spot near the small kitchen counter.

Heero lifted an eyebrow; obviously that would not have been his idea of fun. Then he shrugged. "We've been on missions continuously for almost a year, give or take a week's recuperation here and there. If you want, Une could give you a month's leave to take some classes -"

"No point," Wufei interrupted. "We both know that it would be cut short by some fire or other. I wouldn't be able to fully concentrate knowing that. I'm sure we'll have a couple of weeks before the next crisis, I can study during my downtime, as usual."

Heero nodded, accepting that at face value, and why shouldn't he? He shouldered his duffel and strode briskly towards the door. "Let's go, Chang."

"...Yes."

The door didn't quite close behind his partner. Wufei could hear quick footsteps clattering down the short flight of stairs to the lobby. The squad car had arrived five minutes ago, it was waiting outside to take them to the shuttle port and the Preventer's small troop carrier there.

He stared at the apartment, not really seeing it. It was an illusion, about to dissolve back into smoke and light. Sam would take a team in and make sure nothing could be traced back to Wufei and Heero by the time the next occupants moved in.

There were some papers on the counter. Wufei picked up a couple of brown envelopes absently. Addressed to Yuy Summers and Chang Lin. They had the university logo on them. He stared at them blankly. As he put his down, something slipped from the open envelope. A round disk - the chitty for his locker in the university's gym. It bounced and spun on the counter, a tiny little noise briefly disturbing the silence of the uninhabited apartment. For a second it revolved on its edge like a spinning penny, perfect, as if the movement could go on forever. But then the light plastic started to wobble, its vacillations increasing exponentially until-

Wufei's hand had snatched it up before he even knew he was moving. He found himself gripping the thin plastic, felt its edges bite into his palm. He stared blindly at the kitchen counter. His mind felt numb, as if a shot of novocaine had muted an indefinable ache to a faint, dismissible prickle.

" _Chang!_ " The shout echoed in the stairwell.

Wufei stood frozen with the chitty and Heero's envelope for a few more seconds. Then he shook himself. Time to go back to HQ. Mission successful and all that, and they hadn't had to fake anything. Much. And only one dead body, and Exeter adequately neutralized. Une would be over the moon. She might even give them a week's vacation, one where they could actually forget about their cell phones and- well, no, what on earth would they do with themselves? Maybe she'd give them a bonus. That they wouldn't have any interest in spending. Okay, maybe she'd reward them by letting them tie Anthea to a hill of fire ants. Wufei smiled wolfishly, and absently dropped paper and plastic on the counter. Let Sam's men deal with it, make these fake lives disappear. He grabbed his duffel and marched out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though things were starting to crumble a little on the edges before, this chapter is the pebble down the slope that's going to cause an inevitable avalanche...


	24. Knowledge, Part I

"Three feet of ice does not result from one day of cold weather"  
\--- Mandarin Proverb

 

The two bokken crashed and rasped, wood on wood.

Wufei pushed against his opponent's blade, took a step forward -

No! He'd moved too soon!

Heero's bokken lunged, a bent wrist wresting it from the deadlock with its mate, and hammered into Wufei's shoulder.

Wufei tried to spin -

The sword promptly swept from his shoulder to his knees.

Wufei swore as he tottered and tumbled to the tatami. His furious glare hid the acid bite of shame. What a stupid mistake! Stupid!

Heero let his bokken rest on his shoulder and lifted an eyebrow. The first time he'd managed to catch Wufei out, he'd been rather pleased with himself. The second time, he'd been mocking. This time - the third - there was only that eloquent eyebrow asking Wufei just what the hell he thought he was doing: knitting?

This was humiliating. Heero was a good fencer, but that didn't translate to other sword forms such as Chinese sabers. Wufei had been teaching him for the past few weeks.

My timing and my balance are off...The words squirmed like vermin eating away at his confidence, his pride in his ability.

Heero turned towards the sword stand on one side of the room to put away his practice sword - only to find his way blocked by Wufei's bokken.

"I thought you'd have had enough," Heero commented dryly, glancing at his partner.

Wufei didn't say anything. He glared his challenge, took a step back, and swished the bokken up in a brief salute.

Heero did the same with a cool indifferent movement that Treize would have envied. Wufei normally admired his partner's composure. But today, he found his fingers squeezing the bokken hard enough to make his bones ache. Bad. He forced himself to relax, or Heero would disarm him at the first touch. He steadied himself. Breathed. In. Out...Looked for his center... gave up that attempt quickly; he'd not found it in weeks. He threw himself into a furious attack.

Crash! The bokken bit, wrestled, swept away and crashed together again, barking wooden insults at each other. It went wrong almost immediately. Wufei felt like he was stumbling from one movement to the next, perpetually off-balance.

He was tired. And he shouldn't be, his mind countered ragingly on the heel of that thought. Heero wasn't tired! They'd been working furiously for the past month, ever since that stupid mission on L3. But did Heero show any signs of being affected? Oh no, not the perfect soldier! Fresh as a fucking daisy.

The first two weeks back from L3 had been immediately and insanely busy, and considerably dangerous. The partners had been at the forefront of several offensives to break Syndicate operations: weapons factories, drug manufactures, suit depots. They'd arrested a lot of the Syndicate's small fry, netted from Exeter's information. But the big fish were harder to catch, even with those resources. After their first frantic round-up of criminals and a few truly vicious fights, they'd spent the last two weeks in Brussels, looking for more leads, interrogating the men they had already caught and building their cases.

No cleansing fights, no all-consuming battles, no real life-or-death situations in two weeks - the look on Heero's face as he easily dodged the blow aimed at his shoulder seemed to contemptuously underline the fact that he certainly wasn't in any danger now. He looked almost bored. Wufei whipped the sword towards the hand so lazily holding the bokken, and staggered as his own practice blade bit air. He wrenched a few back muscles stabilizing himself and jerked out of the way of Heero's counter, avoiding it by the breadth of a hair that had been previously quartered.

They worked sixteen hour days at Ops, following their leads, then, when Sally, Sam or Une chased them away, they went back to the safe-house and worked some more. Once the interrogations were done, they both opted of a common, silent accord, to work from Heero's place all the time and avoid all interruptions. The patterns of their lives for the past week or more had been endless repetition. Sitting at the kitchen counter for the most part, hacking into accounts, chasing leads, directing and analyzing satellite surveillance. They'd get up, work for twenty hours, sleep, wake up and repeat. Hours drifted by like hungry ghosts. The only relief was these moments of practice, and the occasional quick, efficient fuck.

Heero's sword darted - a feint! Wufei barely recovered in time to parry the counter-slash that nearly ripped the bokken from his tired hands. Heero had been about to call the fight to a close, but since Wufei had decided to go another round, the soldier was going all the way and showing absolutely no mercy. Of course.

Wufei parried again, and was pushed back. This lack of focus on his part was all the more infuriating because he had been longing for this all day. The quiet of the house had been drilling into his nerves. Heero had been assiduously working for the past ten hours on his laptop, breezily hacking into a few highly secure Swiss bank accounts, following their leads on the Syndicate's financial setup. Apart from a few necessary breaks to keep his body working at peak efficiency, he had not moved away from the computer, or stretched, or talked, or even looked at Wufei all day.

The latter was a bit at a loss to figure out why this bothered him. This was Heero's usual attitude when he had A Mission. It had never annoyed him before. But by the end of the day, Wufei had been ready to grab that laptop and break it over his partner's hard uncaring head just for the excitement that would lead to.

He was off-balance.

It was because he was tired. And bored - this part of the mission wasn't all that interesting, for all it was crucial.

Heero's sword slammed against his, shoving him back again.

Yes, bored and tired.

And Heero, of course, wasn't.

And if he'd noticed Wufei's odd restlessness - of course he'd noticed it, it was about as hard to ignore as a pissed-off dragon in a bamboo grove. Wufei had caught a couple of nearly-curious looks thrown his way, Heero noticing, weighing, and deciding it was none of his business since it didn't affect Wufei's ability to fight against an average opponent.

...He didn't care.

Wufei's muscles screamed as he twisted, bent and straightened, right into Heero's guard, like a mine going off in his face.

...Heero didn't ask what was wrong, because that wasn't the arrangement.

A shove of his shoulder - Heero staggered.

...They shared their strengths, and they honed each other's edge, that was all.

His sword smashed aside Heero's defensive thrust.

...Heero didn't care that his partner was out of sorts for the last month, as long as it didn't affect his work. So Heero just -

A sweeping kick took out Heero's legs.

\- didn't say -

Wufei landed astride him, bokken twisting downwards.

_\- anything!_

The sword slammed point first into the spring-board floor with a harsh bark of wood. His hands smashed into the tsuba, which snapped clean off from the violence of the blow.

The small sound of the little handguard falling to the matting was the only noise, apart from their harsh breathing. Heero's wide eyes were on the white oak of the bokken that had been slammed point-first into the floor an inch away from his head.

Then those dark blue eyes fastened on Wufei.

So...you're looking at me now.

He found himself leaning forward, towards those wide eyes peeking through the rich brown fall of hair, the mouth softened and open in slight shock - they seemed further away. They were at the end of a long tunnel, darkness ringing his vision...From a distance, he saw Heero blink and glance off to one side.

Lips moved. Blood, anger and faint stirrings of lust were boiling in Wufei's ears, it took a moment for the words to filter through-

Heero snarled and shoved. Wufei was tossed aside like a child.

Fury ignited and he scrambled to his knees, the oak of the bokken rasping along the floor as he swung it up.

Heero, who'd uncoiled from the floor like a snake and taken three steps towards one side of the dojo, stared back at him, startled and a bit annoyed. "Are you deaf?"

"What?" Wufei was on his knees or he would have staggered.

"I said there's someone knocking at the door." Heero turned with a dismissive scowl and headed towards the front door. Wufei stayed on his knees. The sword had dipped, taking some of his weight like a crutch.

Heero's voice sounded distant.

"Sam."

"Yeah, hi, got something for you. What have you been up to, boy? You're sweating like a pig."

Wufei saw his own hand pick up Heero's fallen bokken, fingers like light copper against the ivory of the wood. He found himself moving towards the sword-stand, his back to Heero and Sam. Center. He needed to find his center.

It had eluded him for weeks now.

 

 

Sam grimaced as he sipped the ersatz coffee but was too polite to say anything. Or too tired. His rich brown skin had a yellowy, stretched quality to it, his eyes were red and swollen, underlined with blackened bags like bruises. It had been a long month, and Sam was responsible, as directly as a 'consultant' like him could be, for most of the teams hunting down the lower echelons of the Syndicate on the strength of the information the partners had secured from Exeter.

The coffee cup, bought for Duo's visit a while back, clunked on the counter. Sam picked up and leafed through a folder instead.

"I thought you boys might be bored doing all this number crunching stuff," he said without further preamble. Wufei must have suddenly looked like a hound straining at the lead, because the Old Fox grinned. Then he grimaced.

"To be honest, we're tapped out. Our resources in Ops are being stretched like Commander Une's nerves. That's why I have you guys doing the cyberspace hunting; we just don't have anybody else who can take up the slack, though we all know that's not where your true talents lie."

"So what do you have for us?" Wufei's fingers itched to grab the folder from him. The promise of getting out of the house and into a fight burned like a promise of salvation in his mind.

"It's one of the Syndicate bosses we're slowly closing in on. He's starting to feel cornered. We got word on the street that he's had this brainwave. He's decided to kidnap bigwig politicians and industrials, the ones close to Preventers. He's going to hold them so we can't attack him."

Heero's silent sneer was an assessment of how likely that was. Wufei stared from that expression to Sam, eyes wide. "You want us to do hostage rescue?!"

"Are you kidding me?" Sam let loose three short barks of laughter. "I wouldn't trust you guys to rescue my mother in law, and the old cow's bullet-proof! No, he's not put the plan in motion yet. You've got to realize, the people he's aiming his sights at are VIPs. They don't consider their day complete without the odd death threat or two. They know how to defend themselves. So unless one of them does something stupid, it'll take our bloke awhile to get his hands on them. But I'd rest the easier if you two lads could nip his plan - an' him - in the butt."

"Bud," Wufei corrected automatically, then rolled his eyes at Sam's small, cynical grin. Foxwood occasionally pulled out his 'just a beat copper, guv' routine from his repertoire. Wufei sometimes wondered if he'd developed it to fool the criminals he'd spent his life hunting, or the London politicians and senior management he'd had to navigate like an obstacle course while doing his job.

"What do we have?" Heero was, as usual, all business, and didn't show the slightest interest in semantics.

Sam frowned as he flipped through the four pieces of paper contained in the folder. "Not much, strangely enough. I got this direct from the Lady, and she said to pass it to you right away. Obviously this is urgent. Still, not much to go on. No informants, no satellite surveillance, no research. Just a few leads, possible locations, and that's it."

Heero frowned, and his eyes darted towards his laptop.

"I know it sounds a bit low-key," Sam added quickly, "but indications are that there is a real threat here, and the leads are valid. If this is in any way, shape or form a real plot, we'd get our arses roasted if any of these toffs get snatched and we only had a couple of cadets on the case. And cadets are all we have left in-"

"We'll do it." Heero cut him short in a voice indicating that the soldier did not need justifications for his orders. "It'll be nice to get out of the house," he added with the swiftest glance at Wufei. The faintly sardonic tone had tagged a '-and my partner is feeling restless' to his statement. Wufei managed to return the glance, thinking, yeah, that was what was bugging him, he was restless. Getting out of the house sounded good.

Heero grabbed the laptop, started closing programs quickly and efficiently. Wufei finally snagged the folder from Sam's clutches and went through the information, which didn't take very long.

"They're in Brussels?" he asked, rather surprised.

"Sure. They want to hurt us. You can't kick a geezer in the bollocks without getting close. Besides, they, aaah, they have a cunning plan. A lot of their targets will be coming here next week for a conference and some meetings with the Lady and the board of ESUN security. They think this will be a great occasion. Never mind that the whole Brussels police force will be out watching these VIPs," Sam sneered, obviously not impressed by their foe's strategy.

Heero surfed through the online information while Wufei read out the addresses in the folder. They were on the far side of Brussels, in the oldest industrial zone near the river, beyond the old train station; an area of mostly abandoned warehouses, docking bays and haulage facilities. A good place to assemble and house a group of armed nasties in preparation for an attack. Nobody would report them to the police over there. The muggers, hookers and pimps in that region hated anything with a badge.

Wufei glanced back at Sam suspiciously, while his fingers hovered over the locked and reinforced cabinet where the partners kept their more serious artillery. "Is this another mission where we have to be circumspect?"

Sam snorted hugely as he stood. "Hell no. I have six other things I need you two and everybody else in Ops to do, I don't have the time for you to dance the foxtrot with these buggers. And you'll have no backup, lads, unless its regular police, and I'd rather not involve them. So you know what that means: if you actually find these guys, you have my permission to ventilate their arses."

"Perfect," Wufei muttered under his breath, the word covered by the beep of the code he'd entered. He felt his indefinable malaise vanish as his fingers closed around the stocky grip of the special ops Micro Uzi he used when he felt like taking names only to slap them onto the toe-tags at the morgue.

Of course, it was understood - confirmed by a glare from Sam's dark eyes as he left without any other form of farewell - that it was Heero's job to apply liberal doses of mayhem, and Wufei's job to insure that most of the suspects survived, albeit somewhat holed. Despite the Old Fox's brash statement, he was still very attached to proper police procedure, where killing was used only as the last resort, instead of a means of simplifying things. Sam knew that he and Wufei were somewhat on the same wavelength on that.

Normally.

Wufei felt a distant prickle of pity for the Syndicate thugs as he slipped the SMG's strap over his shoulder and grabbed a thick long coat to cover it. Today he wasn't feeling in the mood to pull his own punches, much less Heero's.

Though it turned out that pulling punches was the least of their worries.

 

 

Stupid!

Wufei tightened the field dressing with a small hiss. It was a minor wound across his lower back. Small but painful, stinging and bleeding again every time he moved, and he was moving a lot.

Stupid to have gotten injured. Heero, of course, had been rolling away and firing back before the first bullet clashed into the concrete floor where he'd been standing. Alerted by the sound of the trigger tightening, probably. The second bullet, an instant behind the first, hit Wufei, but he managed to mostly avoid it. They'd been aiming for his legs. That small boon and the fact they'd aimed for Heero first was the reason Wufei still had full use of his legs; he wasn't as quick as Heero when it came to avoiding fire and retaliating. No-one was.

Their attackers hadn't tried for fatal shots, strangely enough. They must prefer the partners alive. Wufei's grip tightened on the small SMG. He had no intention of finding out why, except maybe when the judge asked the bastards in court.

Heero was doing his thing. Wufei heard the Glock fire twice, each time followed by a scream and shouts. His partner was in his element. Hell, he was probably having fun, inasmuch as Heero understood the concept, Wufei groused inwardly. For Wufei, the enjoyment factor had dropped considerably when he realized how thoroughly they were surrounded, and how neatly the jaws of the trap were closing in.

Someone really knew what they were doing out there. This was no hide-out they'd stumbled upon. There had been no traces of occupation to warn them as they entered the docking hangar, still in use for the few ships navigating the canal. They'd thought it would be empty, like the first two leads they'd checked that night. Far from it. These people were here for one reason only, to capture the partners. They'd chosen their location perfectly, and had quite a few men waiting for them. No wonder they hadn't bothered with a head-shot, Wufei thought bitterly. They must feel pretty confident they'd get Heero and Wufei alive.

Time to rip shreds out of their delusions.

Wufei stood in one fluid movement, firing at a shadow. Heero was a pinpoint of light in his mind, he knew where his partner was and would be, as if they'd had hours to discuss their tactics instead of Heero hissing 'left and up' over a pile of old boxes before taking off. Without even checking if Wufei was seriously wounded or not, of course. He was working on the assumption that Wufei could stay conscious, if not mobile, and be able to cover his route as he tried to get around the shooters.

This was not going to be easy, Wufei estimated, ignoring the stab of anxiety as he listened in vain for further shots from the Glock. The men were surrounding them from all directions, even above; he'd fired at several people on the gangplanks over their heads, but the bastards had been shielded by the mechanisms of the cranes used to transport heavy loads across the huge hangar. He'd caught one of them out in the open, the SMG doing short work of him, but the others had circled around him, staying out of sight. How many people were trying to round them up? A considerable number, he thought. They definitely knew what they were doing.

Men scurrying around him - on his right! The Uzi spat out bullets, but hit only a metal container. Damn it! He heard/felt his partner nearing him again. Heero had not found a way around their attackers. This was bad. The entirety of the hangar loomed around them. As soon as the first men had fired, someone had flipped on the overheads. A grim, washed-out light now tracked the partners' attempts to evade the trap. Footsteps echoed in the huge space of the tall hangar, impossible to pinpoint. Stacks and stacks of metallic containers, faded blue and red, each higher than a man, formed a natural maze around them. This was really an exquisite setup for an ambush.

Heero was a ghost, drifting between two rows, heading back towards Wufei. New plan then, the latter guessed; they would hole up, back to back, and wait for their adversaries to come and get them, and pay the price. Hoping that their enemies didn't have stun gas. They already had a scrambler; the Preventers' cell phones had been useless from the moment the trap closed in around them.

He heard the faint noise just as Heero was going to step out from behind a protective container. Wufei’s body reacted on instinct; he hurled himself forward and sideways, hitting the ground while he fired, up and to the right, both hands steadying the SMG. The man who'd moved out of cover on the gangway screamed as some of the bullets slammed into his thigh. The strength of the round swiped the leg out from under him and propelled him sideways. He crashed into the gangway's guiderail, then tumbled over it. It was one of the lowest gangways, a mobile platform only ten feet off the ground, but the fall had probably put him out of commission if the bullets hadn't.

Heero had fallen back to a crouch at Wufei's move, protected by a container twenty feet away from his partner. He darted a look at the now empty space on the gangway, then leaned back, turned towards Wufei - his eyes widened in alarm just as the latter scrambled quickly to his knees.

The cold, hard touch of metal met the back of Wufei's head as he straightened.

On the battle-edge the partners walked, the situation was immediately clear.

Heero was twenty feet away, Glock pointing uselessly towards the now empty gangway to one side.

Another attacker had appeared behind Heero. The blue eyes had flinched; he was aware of the danger. But the man who had stumbled onto the scene had his shotgun pointing in the other direction, he'd been trying to circle them and gotten it wrong.

The person standing behind Wufei, who must have the weight and consistency of a shadow to have gotten behind him so quietly, had a gun to Wufei’s head. He was waiting for Heero to throw down his weapon.

It was all beautifully unambiguous. Wufei, still on his knees, tensed - less than a second had gone by since the metal touched his head, but that preternatural clarity slowed time to a crawl and cast his future as a series of stark probabilities, uncompromised by any emotions.

Heero wouldn't surrender. He would spin around and nail the man behind him, who had turned, shocked, towards Heero and was bringing his shotgun up at the speed of creeping glaciers. The person behind Wufei would fire in response. Wufei would have a split second to dodge, before the trigger was pulled but after it was too late for the man to correct his aim. A split second to live or die. Then Heero would kill the shooter.

The scene remained frozen... for a lingering second...

And then another.

Wufei felt his heart suddenly beat again, a ramming punch in his chest, as time regained its normal speed and Heero was still frozen in position, hesitating. Heero, hesitating! He was staring at the man holding Wufei at gunpoint. The thug behind Heero finally got his coordination right and the shotgun now had the soldier in its sights.

Three painful, confused heartbeats...then Heero leaned forward. The Glock touched the floor and skittered away with the flick of his fingers.

What- what was he doing?! Wufei felt a wash of disbelief and horror and-...well, mainly disbelief and horror. The twanging deadly tension in his body, coiling in preparation for that last spring away from the bullet a few inches from his skull, suddenly released and he slumped forward slightly. They were stuck; even if, by some miracle, Wufei managed to dodge the bullet and take down his opponent, Heero was now disarmed and - and putting his hands on his head - had they used gas after all?! Maybe all this was some kind of hallucination-

"Drop the gun," the man behind Wufei ordered.

Like a kaleidoscope, the scene fractured and reassembled itself into a much more coherent picture.

Of course Heero wouldn't have surrendered for his sake...The quick conclusion felt oddly raw, but then he focused on the here and now.

Wufei carefully put his SMG down and laced his fingers at the back of his neck, mirroring Heero's pose. Footsteps, moving around him. He figured it would be normal to glare at someone who'd captured him, so glare he did, hiding any sense of recognition.

Trowa ignored the glare and casually kicked the Uzi away.

For a nasty, quivering heartbeat, Wufei wondered if he'd not made a mistake. He barely recognized his comrade. Trowa's hair was oily, the bangs ragged and messy and shoved to the side, far from his usual style. And that was just a small detail. His face was hard and bitter, and he managed to look at least five years older than he was. His whole stance was aggressive, ugly. He moved like someone who made a habit of killing and a point of enjoying it.

But the green eyes were all Trowa as they briefly caught Wufei's gaze, the moment hidden from the other attacker holding Heero at shotgun-point.

Then the killer's mask was back, as he crouched in front of Wufei.

"See? Wasn't so hard," he sneered, presumably at the man carefully approaching Heero. Trowa's gun dug painfully under Wufei's chin, shoving his head up and back. He looked like he longed to pull the trigger. The stance, the voice, the attitude, the murderous look - there was no flaw. If it hadn't been for that flash of quickly hidden acknowledgment in Trowa's eyes, Wufei would have believed his comrade had actually gone over to the enemy. In fact, despite the glance, and having been similarly fooled before on the Lunar base, Wufei still wasn't as convinced as he wanted to be, what with the gun digging a hole in the soft flesh under his jaw.

"Three men dead, Nash. Several wounded. Talby looks bad." The man covering Heero sounded reproving. Wufei wasn't surprised when Trowa sniffed scornfully.

"Three men dead to get these two alive? You should be on your knees with my dick in your mouth in sheer gratitude we got them so cheap, Bruckheim."

Wufei, looking over Trowa's shoulder, saw the thug's thin lips quiver with a very-much unvoiced 'Fuck you' aimed at Trowa's back. Then he looked immediately scared at his audacity.

"Call in the others and get the truck around. And get some reinforced steel handcuffs," Trowa ordered, eyes still bright and deadly on Wufei. So he's in charge, Wufei thought, no wonder the trap was so good.

"Hold up-" Trowa had moved so fast it left Wufei blinking. He gasped when a hand gripped his throat and yanked his head back into Trowa's chest. The cold muzzle of the Browning pressed against his temple. "Keep your shotgun on that other one, Bruckheim. He's the worst. Jan?! Get your scabby ass down here, and tell Helena to cut the scrambler! You-" Heero straightened slightly, Wufei gathered Trowa was addressing him. "Don't try anything funny, Zero One. Or I'll blow your...friend's brains out."

Zero One. Oh this wasn't good, Wufei thought, mind spinning. How much was Trowa in control of the situation? What was his mission and what was he up to? Would-

'... friend'? Wufei's mind lingered briefly over that mocking little pause between the words. What had that meant? Well, Heero wasn't going to try anything. He'd always trusted Trowa implicitly, despite the rather strange situations they'd found each other in at times. Wufei, with the muzzle digging painfully into his temple, rather envied that confidence.

If this hadn't been Trowa, Wufei would have taken a gamble. This wasn't the best position to hold someone like himself. But Trowa's alter ego might not know that. Was he merely acting the part, or giving Wufei a break? Dammit! This was why Wufei hated undercover missions! You got so caught up in all the fucking lies you tripped yourself and your allies as much as the enemy. He tensed. Was Trowa giving him an out? A chance to disarm 'Nash' and get Heero and himself away in a believable fashion? Or-

Trowa's fingers tightened on his neck, a ripple of quick presses. Their old code. Hold. Hold. Hold.

Okay, Barton. I hope you know what you're doing. Wufei relaxed slightly against the grip, saw Heero echo the unspoken submission.

And hoped they wouldn't regret it.


	25. Knowledge, Part II

"A frog in a well shaft seeing the sky"  
\--- Chinese Saying

 

Trowa was efficient as he gathered up his men, fifteen in all. Well, twelve now, and four of those injured. He had two of them frisk and cuff his captives. Then the captives were hustled to the truck driven right into the hangar. There were openings the partners could have exploited, but not many. The men seemed to be in awe - and fairly terrified - of their leader and his obvious competence.

The truck ride lasted about half an hour, but they stopped several times and Wufei was willing to bet that they'd changed directions frequently. They were probably in the same industrial zone. At least that's what it looked like when the truck finally stopped and they were dragged from it. The truck had pulled up under the portico of a building, no doubt to protect them from eventual satellite surveillance. Wufei glanced around quickly as he was pulled roughly over the tailgate. They were in the middle of a huge yard, with three hangars and a big garage off to one side, in the direction of the canal. He saw shadows move in and about the buildings. Many shadows. Mounds of garbage and broken old cars made odd, amorphous shapes under a few, unbroken streetlights, like sludge dredged up against the double-chainlink fence a hundred feet away. They were being shoved towards the doors of what looked like a disused office building, rising incongruently from the puddle of gunk around its base. A cracked, dirty sign read 'Klimt Haulage Corp' under some crude and uninspired graffiti.

Two men on either side of each cuffed Preventer escorted them through the broken doors, Trowa right behind them with a gun trained on Heero at all times. The entire ground floor had been gutted, and held traces of firecans near a broken window and weather damaged wall. There was garbage everywhere. They were taken up a flight of stairs smelling of old piss and cats. The second story was better kept; the ruined first floor and the stairwell were probably there to discourage the curious, if there were any stupidly wandering around in this wasteland.

They were taken to the back of the building. Wufei noted as many details as he could. Most of the doors were closed. One open one revealed a room full of sleeping bags, he counted six of them. But there weren't many men in the building, that he could hear. It must be off-limits to most of the men outside. The Syndicate were notoriously cagey about letting their minions know more than they needed to. Two men were talking in low voices over a map spread on an abandoned desk in a room without a door. In another, a man was sitting in front of several monitors wired to a portable generator, cables running all over the floor in bunches tired together with wire. Finally they arrived at their destination, or rather, their holding cell: one of the old offices.

It was a far cry from Exeter's shabby attempt at locking them up. Wufei and Heero were cuffed each to a deck chair moulded from one piece of tough, flexible plastic. Wufei managed to keep any wince of pain from his face or stance as his wound was forcibly pressed against the chair's back, and his arms wrenched backward to pin him to it. Three men kept watch in the room with them. Two stayed near the door, and they almost immediately brought out a deck of cards and pulled up two more garden chairs and a crate. Trowa was the third, he took first watch without a word to any of his men. He sat down and stared at the partners as if waiting for them to try something stupid and longing to make them pay the price for it.

The silence was heavy and lasted a long time, only ruffled by the slap of cards and a few words as the two men near the door played baccarat. It was probably around four in the morning, that dead time when even feral cats had slunk back to their lairs in the garbage and the ruins. Wufei couldn't relax. It would have been wise to meditate, conserve his strength and energy, but having Trowa's eyes on him, with that expression, was sending his stress levels way up, even though his mind kept reminding him this was a friend and ally. Probably. Almost certainly. But Trowa might not be able to save them from execution, if that was where this was heading. Even if he was willing to compromise his mission - and Wufei, used to Heero's way of thinking, wouldn't count on that - he was one man against several dozen, if not more. The odds were not good.

Trowa was on his feet and his back against the wall before Wufei even registered the slight noise beyond the door. A gentle tap, and one of the men, after a nod from Trowa, went to open it.

Two men came in. Trowa nodded an acknowledgment to them, then stood back, on one side of the door, and chased the previous guards out with a curt gesture.

Wufei examined the new arrivals carefully, in case he ever had the pleasure of filing a crime report on either of them. One he thought he recognized: a local lieutenant in the Syndicate, risen from the ranks the hard and bloody way. The other he'd never seen before. Wufei noted finely manicured hands, very expensive shoes, a clean, professionally tanned face and well-cut hair; he ignored the attempt at unobtrusive and casual dress. This guy was a big fish. Probably one of the many heads of the Syndicate, the one Sam had said was feeling cornered. The partners had been on his tracks for weeks now, but had never seen him even in a picture before. In his late fifties, though he looked younger at first glance. Slightly paunchy but mostly fit. Round, regular features, handsome in a well-groomed and unremarkable way. Hair was brown, probably dyed. When he rubbed his hands together Wufei noted the pale dimple of a removed wedding ring. The man's gesture was not nervous, it was slow and thoughtful. He looked them over carefully, examining their features attentively without catching their eyes.

"These are definitely the men we wanted. Well done, Mr Nash," he finally said without any further introduction.

"Just Nash," Trowa muttered, but he sounded a lot more polite, in a resentful way, than with his men.

The boss - Wufei was ready to bet his life this was he - ignored the comment and the tone. "I can hardly believe you got both of them at so little cost. Bruckheim gave me an accounting of their capture; he was impressed."

Trowa sniffed, a gesture eloquent in its dismissal of Bruckheim and his impressions. "It helped that we knew where they were going to be tonight. Allowed us to set up a welcome in that hangar," he added.

Wufei had been reluctantly admiring Trowa's complete immersion in the role - and so his ears pricked at those last two sentences. There had been something there. Something a bit off. And, very briefly, Trowa's eyes had flashed their usual deeper green. Some kind of warning.

"How _did_ you know where we were going to be?" Wufei found himself asking, prompted by his intuition and that tone. He'd felt Heero tense to ask the same question.

The boss completely ignored him. He was staring at Heero, or rather, an inch above Heero's head. He rubbed his hands again.

The third man in the room snorted. It was an ugly sound. Vielle, Wufei suddenly remembered. He'd seen surveillance photos of possible Syndicate operatives here in Brussels. Antoine Valery Vielle.

"We've been watching you two. Very carefully." Vielle's grin was awful, a slash of a leer on thick, beefy chops. "Ve-ry carefully. Right, Nash?"

Trowa smiled tightly as if humoring him. Vielle, who'd glanced back, raised his eyebrows at the expression.

"Oh come on. You said we should make it a pay-per-view."

"As a joke." Trowa shrugged, uncaring. "Personally, I don't swing that way."

Pay-per-...? What...? Wufei reined in his questions and impatience. Vielle was going to tell them, that much was obvious. And Wufei wasn't going to like it; that much was obvious too. Had these goons hacked in to Ops's security cameras?

"We have our ins and outs in your precious Division," Vielle chuckled. "It's like gruyère!" Beside Vielle, the boss smiled, though it appeared most of his thoughts were elsewhere.

"We have your Lady Une under constant surveillance. Did you know she has a shower in her private bathroom?" Vielle leered and Trowa made a cruel, appreciative noise in the background. Wufei let himself enjoy a quick mental picture of Une taking Vielle's testicles off with a melon baller, though in reality Une probably wouldn't give a shit.

"We heard you were her two golden boys. So we decided to keep a close eye on you. We got your home address."

Fuck, more leaks. So they'd been followed tonight?

"And we put little monitors in every room."

There was a moment of silence. Vielle grinned, waiting in ugly anticipation. Wufei stared back in slowly dawning comprehension and disbelief.

"You're lying." Heero's voice was an uncaring monotone. "You couldn't get past my security system."

Wufei's ears were ringing, but he heard it nonetheless; the slight, nearly unnoticeable hitch in Heero's voice as he realized, even as he said those words, that there was someone here who could break into their rooms, plant bugs sufficiently discreetly where even Heero would miss them, and leave without a trace.

"It wasn't easy." Trowa confirmed their suspicions casually. "But our sources told us you two were out in Mexico somewhere. I had a few nights to worm my way in. You didn't wire up your roof access properly, there were gaps."

Mexico...That meant the bugs had been there for over three weeks. Trowa was warning them, giving them an indication of how much the Syndicate might know of their current operations, as well as informing Heero about a hole in his security net that he should address if ever they got out of this mess alive.

The thought of having been compromised was one thing...Wufei had another, more personal concern. Very personal. But that bit didn't matter. The worst, in a way, was that Wufei wasn't even going to make a fuss about this, assuming they survived. He'd been living with Heero for too long; he'd learned to think differently. Everything was for the mission. Pride, honour, justice, _self_... they all became words, notions you discarded as inefficient and unessential. You just did the job. You accepted stuff like this and moved on and forgot about it and killed a bit more of that small, inner self that was, right at this moment, gasping in shock, feeling vulnerable and violated. That bit didn't matter.

He managed to feel a distant pride that nothing had shown on his face beyond his extreme contempt for the insects before him.

Trowa's eyes had been fixed on Heero's, ice on ice. He glanced away nonchalantly and turned towards Vielle.

"I still think we should make a montage of the one from the bedroom," he said, his voice as smooth as a cat toying with a mouse. "So far, only you, me and Xian have seen it. I'm sure the guys would love it. That and all the home footage we taped from our other targets. Especially that Swiss agent and her girlfriend."

So they had more than Heero and Wufei under close surveillance. And the details of the partners' private lives were not yet spread around the entire Syndicate and underworld. Wufei rather suspected Trowa had been trying to tell them the former rather than the latter. Or maybe that was just Wufei's long association with Heero speaking. It didn't matter. All that mattered was the mission; the enemy had been watching when Sam had given them the details of tonight's operation. They'd heard Sam inform Heero and Wufei that they would have no backup, no surveillance, no nothing.

Vielle was saying a show was a good idea when the boss finally stirred.

"Let's not get crass, Nash." The curl of his lips spoke of more distaste than the video suggestion could warrant. Trowa ducked his head, sullen and watchful, like a vicious attack dog used to being harshly brought under control by its trainers.

"We have bigger concerns," the older man continued, once more distant. "Corazon came back with yet another guest. The camera you planted at the Himmel pent-house came in very handy."

"The target at the Himmel? The rich bastard? Corazon got him?" Trowa suddenly looked keen. It was obvious that he expected some monetary fall-out from this success.

"Yes. He was imprudent. Decided to ditch his bodyguard and go to town. It was already a boon for us that he decided to make his visit to the Lady Rat a whole week early. The Brussels police weren't ready to properly guard him yet. You'll be rewarded for this, Nash. We do not forget those who help us."

"If we have him...do we need those two?" Trowa asked, eyes feral on Heero and Wufei. The latter had a feeling that whatever his cover story was, it included a dislike for Gundam pilots.

"Yes, we need them," the boss answered shortly. "And my associates will pay a lot of money for them to arrive alive and relatively unharmed."

"We're hostages?" Heero sounded frankly incredulous.

The leader had taken a step towards the door. He slowly turned back. His eyes were cold and uncaring as he finally looked straight at Heero.

"No, Mr Yuy. We are not holding you hostage. We are going to kill you. Fairly unpleasantly, I'm afraid. You and Une really have left us no choice."

Heero smiled slightly in a way that sent prickles up Wufei's spine, and made the boss frown and look away.

"Dekim was a fool, going about it the open way. Like he was Napoleon! He's the one who really started the war between us," the boss grumbled, eyes flickering over Wufei, Vielle, the dirt-covered window, anywhere but that smile. "He was a calamity waiting to happen. If anything, I'm grateful you people took him down without more fuss. Some of my colleagues will claim that they are executing you to avenge Dekim." He looked at Heero from the corner of his eye. The smile had disappeared and Heero's face was back on Yuy-neutral. The boss straightened and faced him fully. "We aren't happy about Dekim. But that's not really why we are going to be sending your body parts to the various members of the Preventer and ESUN board."

The man frowned, and looked down at his well-manicured hands. He'd not looked the slightest bit upset at the description of Heero's end, but the next few words seemed to come out reluctantly. "It's crude. We shouldn't have to be so...vulgar about it. But you forced our hand. We had an understanding with Romefeller. We will hammer out the same understanding with Une and this new-fangled ESUN that took Romefeller's place. But first, we will need a few object lessons, and you, Mr Yuy - both of you - will have to be it. We will never get anywhere if people don't fear us. Capturing and terminating two of the Gundam pilots, the two that Une kept close to her and used for her dirty work...that will put the fear of our organization back into their minds." He turned away dismissively, and Wufei wondered if he'd even bother to show up when he and Heero were being tortured to death.

"They're dangerous, though," Trowa muttered as the boss passed him.

The man shrugged. "That they are. But I trust you to keep them quiet, Nash. If you do your job right, we might even require your help when my friends finally have our long-delayed discussion with Mr Yuy and his-...ah...I'm sorry, I was told your name but I-" He'd turned back and glanced at Wufei almost apologetically.

"Chang Wufei," Wufei answered coldly. If he was going to die, when they made a break for it soon or later under torture, then he wanted it to be under his own name and not as Heero's _anything_. He ignored Vielle's leer. Trowa was smiling, a cold, savage grin, eyes still fixed on Heero.

"Right," the boss muttered absently, as if remembering the name and forgetting it just as promptly. "Be ready to have them evacuated in thirty minutes, Nash. Coordinate with Antoine, he's getting the transport ready. Our other guest is here already. Corazon brought him ten minutes ago. You will have to go talk to Corazon yourself, nobody is allowed up there other than those with maximum clearance."

"We'll move all of them together? Is that wise?" Trowa asked, still staring at Heero.

"I don't see that we have much choice. I want all three of them out of Brussels in less than an hour, and we cannot arrange for another plane in so short a time. It was truly fortuitous that Mr Yuy and his friend decided to come looking for us tonight. I suggest we trust fortune to keep them and our hostage in our hands for awhile longer."

"You're the boss," Trowa commented, finally turning and nodding with a show of insincere respect at the chief's departing back.

The two men who'd been playing cards outside the door stood hastily as the boss passed them by without a word. Trowa glared at them as they came back in.

"Can you two fucks stop playing long enough to watch these guys? I got something I gotta do."

The men mumbled something incomprehensible, put away the cards and stood in an attempt at parade ground attention that would have gotten them shot under Treize. Trowa sneered, started to leave, then with a contemptuous look at the two, swiveled around and walked behind Wufei.

"You two are staying on guard," Trowa informed his men, voice hard and aggressive. Cruel hands jerked Wufei's handcuffs, shooting pain up and down his arm and through the joints of his shoulders. "You're to stand there and keep your eyes on them at all times." Trowa's fingers curled around Wufei's, pressing something metallic into his palm. "If you need a break, one of you go out the door and shout for Phillips, he's down the hall with his guys. But the other one stays here with gun drawn on them." He moved behind Heero. Tugged his cuffs too. "Don't get too close to them and don't fuck with them. They're more dangerous than twenty of you. Got that?" Wufei noted the way Heero's fingers quickly flexed and closed over his palm.

The men muttered their agreement, both sullen and nervous as Trowa approached them. His eyes narrowed. Before they could do more than gasp, he grabbed them each by their forehead and slammed their heads back against the wall. The men froze, eyes rolling as 'Nash' leaned forward between them until he was almost whispering in their ears.

"Listen carefully. I'll be popping by. If you two aren't doing exactly what I told you just now, I will rip off your dicks and fuck you with them. Is that _perfectly_ clear?"

Both men swallowed at once and said 'yes' in choked voices. Trowa leaned back an inch and stared at them, up close, for a few seconds, then let them go and made a show of wiping his hands on his jeans. Then he turned towards the partners and looked at them with cold, anticipatory menace.

"I doubt they'll let me have a go at you. They want it to last, and I'd kill you in twenty minutes. Or less. You and the rich bastard they're keeping upstairs, you all have an appointment with someone who'll take much better care of you. But I will be with the big cheeses, and I'll be watching. See you around."

"We certainly will," Wufei answered arrogantly, since some kind of response was probably expected of him. Heero just did his Death Glare number 9 and left it at that. The door closed softly behind Trowa, and the two men leaned back against the wall, relaxing a little bit, though their drawn weapons were still loosely pointed at the partners.

Right. Twenty minutes and he and Heero would break out of here, Wufei thought, carefully using the key to unlock the cuffs without any motion visible in his arms or shoulders. Then Trowa expected them to go and insure the safety of the hostage that the boss had apparently managed to capture. Damn that moron of a politician or whoever they'd managed to snag; if he hadn't arrived ahead of schedule, or decided to go for an unprotected stroll, Wufei could have gone and had a long talk with Vielle and his boss. Now they had to go and protect his rich ass instead. It seemed that Trowa did not share Sam's lack of faith in their hostage rescue abilities. Or he just didn't have a choice. Wufei guessed, from Trowa's words, that the infiltrator wanted to keep up his cover for a while longer, try to get a few more heads of the Syndicate into his noose.

Wufei started a countdown in his head, ran over in his mind how many men he'd seen in the building. Not that many, most of them were outside. How were they armed? The hostage was on one of the floors above them, they'd have to get to the stairwell. How discreet did Trowa need them to be?

A small part of him was still pulsing with anger and shock. He mostly ignored it. He shouldn't really care. After all, they'd been ready to have sex for the benefit of Exeter's men back on L3.

But that would have been faked. Ultimately, and deep-down, they'd have known that, and the knowledge would have somehow shielded him. Just a game, just an act. Like that kiss in the club, he reminded himself, and was surprised at the faint surge of bitterness at the thought.

But the occasions they'd fucked since the cameras had been placed...that had been _them_. The real thing. The raw deal. The arrangement was ripped open and laid bare. Vielle just saw it as a peepshow, and Wufei, hardened in Heero's crucible, didn't care about that overgrown amoeba. He was more upset about Trowa. And Une, Sam, and Sally. Because of course, assuming they managed to crack this operation, the records would become evidence. They'd be in the Preventer files; classified, but they'd still be seen by those who mattered.

Why _did_ it matter? So they'd find out. The arrangement wasn't something he was ashamed of. He'd often been embarrassed at the necessities of the arrangement, but never ashamed that Heero had chosen him for the shudo, for the agreement of samurai who wanted no affection, no bonds to weaken them. If the others asked - and he was sure they would - he'd just tell them the truth. That Heero and he relieved their sexual frustration with each other, had done so since the war. Like Heero had put it at one point; no needless emotions.

In his mind's eye he was telling this to his friends, who were kind, concerned people who cared about him. They'd probably think it was great he and Heero were together, they'd want to know more details about their supposed relationship, get them to be more open about it, as if they were- were lov-

He'd tell them it was just for sex and for the partnership and they'd look at him and...and question that and root around and try to understand and _scrutinize_ \- and why was the very thought of this taking on the same dimensions as the boss's casual threats of torture? He had nothing to hide!

Wufei wrenched his thoughts away. Nothing he could do about it. Nothing.

Heero twisted in his chair. He looked upset. Something like a little consolation flickered in that tiny part of Wufei that was still trembling with wounded pride and... no, nothing else. Just pride.

His partner hissed quickly, in the English they used together, with a few words of Japanese and Chinese tossed in, and peppered with suit references, war lingo and code, a private dialect even a multi- linguist would barely follow: "Three weeks - what cases did we talk about? Did we discuss Ops defenses? Security? Did we mention any informants by name?"

Figured... 

Wufei felt something inside him finally crumble completely as he carefully examined every nuance of his partner's stance, his face and eyes, looking for any trace that Heero was as shaken as he was. That his partner wouldn't be able, when their friends asked, to shrug away their arrangement with a casual 'just a convenient fuck'.

He found nothing. Except the beginnings of a small, puzzled frown at his silence.

"I can't remember..." Wufei mumbled, then shook himself.

No. This wasn't...this wasn't him. He'd been off-balance for long enough. Wanting _something_ \- not even sure what - that didn't exist. That couldn't exist.

Wufei breathed in. Out. Closed his eyes briefly... and his center was there, unexpectedly right before him.

He'd accepted this arrangement years ago - embraced it - for a reason. It made him better, stronger. It gave him the opportunity to live on an edge few others had ever known even existed. An edge that no emotions or feelings could cling to. Now was the time to call upon that strength.

Besides, it had been fifteen minutes since Trowa had left. Time to do their thing.

"We would never mention an informant by name, we always use code," he answered crisply, completely ignoring the two guards who had straightened up from the wall and were looking at each other hesitantly. His mind quickly recapitulated the contents of the last three weeks and he bit his lips and exchanged worried glances with Heero. Damn. There would still be some damage. Especially this last week when they'd worked from home. They'd discussed Heero's findings, his work on breaking the financial aspects of the Syndicate. I expect a lot of money got shuffled behind our backs, Wufei thought angrily. Damn it, couldn't Barton have found a way of - no. This wasn't the OZ Lunar base. These men didn't have the rigid, easily infiltrated infrastructure of a military hierarchy. They had the paranoia of rodents. If Trowa was under deep cover, he wouldn't risk breaking it for anything that wasn't crucial.

"Oy. No talking," one of the men ordered.

"Did you recognize the leader of that task-force? Nash?" Wufei asked his partner. The room might be monitored, they had to keep up the pretense.

"No," Heero answered neutrally. "But I recognize most of the others. Including these two." He stared slowly first at one, then the other of their captors.

"I said, no talking!" the man shouted, waving his gun around.

"Yes, I know I've seen their faces somewhere," Wufei murmured thoughtfully, examining the unshaven and threatening mugs while ignoring the menacing steps forward they'd taken.

"Shut up!" the other man growled.

"Of course we have. We know every one of the Brussels operatives for their organization," Heero pointed out as he twisted to look at Wufei. There was a faint hint of curiosity in his voice; no doubt he was wondering where his partner was going with this.

"No..." Wufei bit his lip in thought. "That wasn't where I- oh, I remember. It was at the police station the other day; a list of the local pimps."

"You little fuck-"

The man didn't have time to finish his sentence, much less pistol whip Wufei into submission. One hand to knock away the blow, the other deep into his gut. Heero had already leapt off his chair and clocked the other one in the jaw, gracefully catching the gun mid-air as it and its owner tumbled to the ground.

At a gesture from his partner, Wufei gripped his stolen Luger and went to listen at the door. A few people were moving about the building. From a glimpse in the dark stairwell when they'd been brought up, Wufei estimated the place had at least three or four more floors, and they didn't know where the hostage was being kept.

He ignored the sounds behind him, of Heero crushing their former captors' throats. It was an unfortunate necessity. They could not afford having them come to and give the alarm. These men might also guess that Trowa had freed them. To protect his cover...sorry, Sam. Heero moved the bodies to one side of the room, against the wall behind the door, and moved to his partner's other side.

Wufei glanced at Heero, wondering how they were going to tackle this, and found his partner looking him over carefully. It was the way he would give him a once-over to check for injury after a firefight. But he had to know that Wufei was mobile and unhurt, must have known that before they jumped the guards. Wufei was just starting to wonder what his partner was looking for when Heero's eyes dropped quickly from his face to his back, then flicked towards the deck chair where he'd been sitting. Blood was smeared like reddish brown paint on the white plastic.

"How bad is that?" Heero asked brusquely, handing him some extra chargers he'd found on one of the bodies.

Wufei shrugged. "Bleeding, painful, not crippling," he answered absently, slipping the ammo into his pocket.

Heero didn't look at the stained hole in the coat; his eyes went once more over Wufei's stance, as if not quite convinced his partner wasn't downplaying his injury. He didn't look entirely satisfied, but from the uncharacteristic hesitation that followed, Wufei gathered he was unable to find a way to formulate the question again, now that Wufei had told him his status clearly and was not expecting to be contradicted. Heero nodded abruptly and turned towards the door.

"You secure the hostage," he ordered, tightening his grip on his weapon. "I'll get the man who was here earlier and any information-"

"That might interfere with, ah, another operation," Wufei cautioned him carefully. The room was probably not being monitored, since no-one had shown up to recapture them, but no point being careless, not with Trowa's life on the line.

"I'll stay away from their commander then, but I'm not leaving without some more information, now that ours was compromised." Heero's voice was below a whisper but still managed to get a bit of steely determination into it.

Wufei merely shrugged. He had his duty.

They opened the door and split up without another word.


	26. Knowledge, Part III

"You will never lose a battle if you know your own situation as well as that of the enemy."  
\--- Chinese proverb

 

 

Heero carefully opened the door and the partners split up without another word. Wufei headed up the stairs and Heero cautiously started checking doors along the hallway.

The mission took Wufei over. His focus came easily. He'd found his center again, his fierce pride in his own strength, and he wouldn't let anyone rip it from him again, not even- not anyone. He would need it and more to get through the tender attentions of his friends in the near future. And he needed it now, to make sure he was alive to fend off their well-meaning questions later on. Plus he needed to punch Trowa, just once. He wasn't really all that angry with his friend, not after living with Mr Die-For-Your-Mission for a year. But it would relieve the tension that would undoubtedly exist between them after this. Besides Trowa was no doubt rather expecting it.

Five minutes after they'd broken out, an alarm went off, short high whistles like a very, very loud and obnoxious car alarm. Wufei tensed, quickly taking shelter in an empty storage room, but if the alarm was because of him, there was no indication of it. He heard shouts from several directions and a lot of movement from outside. He frowned; the alarm was getting annoying-

Shots! Nearly covered by the alarm - and shouts!

"Fuck," Wufei muttered. The shots had come from above. He was on the third floor, deserted as far as his cursory examination had been able to determine. The gunfire had come from the fourth.

More shots, and what sounded like a submachine gun spitting out death. Shit shit shit! So much for the hostage. Sorry, Sam, we're going to be getting our arses roasted after all. Still, he had to go and make sure. And mete out justice to the man's murderers.

The sound of running footsteps in the stairwell next to his door kept him in the small storage area. An armed man - Bruckheim - passed him at a run. Wufei leapt after him, grabbed him by the throat, tumbled him, put a knee on his spine and quickly snapped his neck. All in all, it took less than a twenty seconds. He threw the body in the room he'd been hiding in, and then he ghosted up the steps. They lead to the uppermost floor. The stairwell gave way to iron steps up to a roof access. Wufei's cursory examination showed him a short hallway, with four doors on either side and one at the end, leading into what looked like a big office taking up most of the front of the building. Two men were crouching on either side of that door. One had a shotgun, the other was pointing a machine gun at an invisible target. They were shouting at someone to surrender before they came in and made him, or something; the noise covered Wufei's approach. He killed them both with neat efficiency, a bullet each as he walked up to them. He cast a cautious eye into the room. From the way the thugs had been behaving, someone inside who was presumably not on their side had been firing back. Maybe Wufei had misunderstood the plan. Maybe Trowa had come to secure the hostage himself.

"Who is that?"

The familiarity of that voice stunned Wufei into silence for a few seconds.

"I'm coming in," he finally warned, not sure, what with all the undercover stuff going on around him, how he was supposed to identify himself any more. A soft gasp from inside the room indicated that the speaker had recognized his voice as well.

Wufei poked a cautious head around the doorjamb, then came in slowly. The room was U-shaped, an open office area curving around a small room, probably reserved for photocopying, or a management office. The man with the machine-gun had really been stupid. The four bodies lying around showed that all he'd hit were his friends, while his target was safely behind the corner of the U-bend, out of sight. Not that the machine gun had done the fatal damage. Wufei was conversant enough with bullet holes to disregard the wild strafes that had peppered the walls and bodies, and concentrate on what had been the killing or incapacitating shots; neat holes from a small caliber weapon, as precise as if they'd been delivered on a shooting range.

He was feeling off-balance again, but this time he had a bloody good excuse! He'd expected to have to fight his way into a heavily guarded room with a terrified executive or politician cuffed to a chair. Or, worse, with a bullet between the eyes.

The important executive was there all right. He was crouched around the corner of the U-bend, holding the wounded boss at gunpoint. Wufei checked the other bodies quickly, making sure no-one was faking, and knowing that wasn't the case. Quatre would have already made sure. Reluctantly but without hesitation, the core of steel encased in the real yet misleading gentleness.

Quatre was looking at him in amazement - though the HK pointed at the boss didn't waver. Neither did Quatre's other hand as it applied pressure to the gunshot wound in the man's shoulder. The boss was on the floor and had twisted painfully to glare at Wufei; he was no longer distant and indifferent.

"Uh..." Quatre glanced down at the boss, then, quite casually, gripped the man above the ears with deceptively strong fingers. The boss stiffened and squirmed in alarm, but Quatre was pinning him down with one knee in the stomach and he couldn't get away. Finally he slumped, unconscious, and Quatre relieved the pressure.

"There, that should give us a few minutes. I don't want to hurt him, though. We went to a lot of trouble to get him. Wufei, what are you doing here?" He'd turned slightly. One of the room's three sets of neon lights had been shot, dangling from their holder. The other two cast a sickly glint on Quatre's pale face. He had a nasty bruise and a cut over one temple, with a trickle of blood running down the angle of his jaw, but he appeared otherwise unhurt. "Did you come with- I can't believe the Preventers are here already! That was fast. I only called them five minutes ago." Quatre glanced at his watch. Wufei absently noted the cell-phone still gripped in the boss's right hand and guessed that when Quatre had said he'd called for help, he had meant he'd forced the boss to do the honors at gun-point.

"We... " Wufei looked around. Most of the people present were dead or unconscious, but still he was cautious in his explanations. "We were captured and brought here. Heero and I. By a Syndicate mobster named Nash." Quatre's pupils dilated, but he gave no other sign of recognition. "We managed to escape though. Heero is checking for data, anything he can find."

"Hm. I hope he doesn't do anything, ah, imprudent." Quatre looked worried. "Can you contact him?"

"No." Wufei sighed. The thugs they'd initially taken down hadn't possessed a cell phone and their own had been confiscated.

As if in answer to their thoughts... "Chang?" The familiar voice sounded from just outside the door.

"Yuy? You can come in, safe." Wufei poked his head around the corner of the protective U-bend and looked towards the door, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

Heero's eyes were flicking over every corner of the room. "I heard shots - Winner?!"

"Hello, Heero." Quatre had leaned over the boss again, checking his wound and his pupils. But he flashed the soldier a brilliant smile over his shoulder. "Glad you could join us. We need to defend this location for a few more minutes. The Preventers should be arriving soon."

"How would they know this address?" Wufei asked suspiciously.

Quatre grinned and gestured at the boss with his HK. "Well, I asked him for it, for show, but I didn't need to. I had a locater surgically inserted into my abdominal cavity a couple weeks back, when we were preparing for this op. We set up several redundancies in case I couldn't the information from-"

"Wonderful," Wufei ground out. "Any reason why you didn't tell us what was going down?"

"Security." Quatre shrugged. "Ah, thanks, Heero." The latter had ripped a shirt from one of the bodies and had applied a rough padding to the boss's shoulder. The man's eyes were half open but still rolled back in his skull. Heero frisked him, then moved him a bit so that they could go to the door while keeping an eye on him. Quatre came with them, his HK still loosely pointed at the boss. He glanced at his watch again.

"Well, if you're not with the rescue team, then we have a few minutes. This area is apparently off-limits to all but the boss, the sub-division commander Corazon, Nash, Vielle, and a few of their men. They're paranoid about leaks in their own forces. And I think...I should imagine that there might be some confusion in the ranks right now. And I bet their comms have mysteriously gone down, and someone has apparently tripped the motion detector on the outer perimeter fence. Although fortunately they've cut off that annoying alarm now."

Quatre explained this all smoothly, though Wufei doubted he'd had more than a few coded words from 'Nash' before Trowa had left to sow the confusion, allowing Quatre to take out these men and capture the boss. A few words were probably all that was needed for the tactician. Even without those, he could probably follow Trowa's movements and tactics the same way Wufei could follow Heero's.

"So with any luck we'll be undisturbed for awhile. Why don't we tell each other what we're doing here?" Quatre concluded, looking at them curiously.

"What a wonderful idea," Wufei ground out. He glanced out the grimy window, where a dirty dawn was starting to taint the night. Men were moving, fairly calmly, from the fence and the gate back to the building and the hangars. He could still see a few people running though, and he thought he caught glances up at the fourth floor. He wasn't sure they weren't going to be disturbed. Surely someone on the second floor would have noticed the gunshots. The alarm would take some time to spread if someone had turned on the scrambler though. He took up position beside Heero, each on opposite sides of the door, and kept a close watch on the stairwell.

"You both know that Ops and every level of ESUN have been compromised," Quatre started to explain further, his eyes and HK on the boss's slumped form. Heero and Wufei exchanged a charged glance.

"We were aware of it," Wufei confirmed acidly.

"This was obviously a serious problem, and Une did what she had to do to deal with it. She sent someone we know under very deep cover several months ago to infiltrate the organization. But the Syndicate were being careful. Our spy couldn't get any kind of information about who was selling us out. So we decided -yes, I was in on this. Une wanted help from someone who could do this kind of job but who wasn't a Preventer," he added as Wufei looked at him sharply.

"And why, in the name of all the philosophers of the six dynasties, did you decide not to inform us of this operation?" Wufei uttered between clenched teeth.

"We couldn't take the risk. Of the entire ESUN and Preventer organization, there were four people aware of this operation. Me, Grecko, Une and... our undercover agent. We couldn't even communicate extensively between ourselves, much less find a way of bringing you two, or Duo, in." Wufei found himself nodding glumly. If Quatre had shown up at their doorstep, or if Une had talked to them in her office, and told them something was going on...with the monitoring devices listening to every word, it would have been Trowa's death warrant.

"Besides..." Quatre looked slightly embarrassed. "Erm, though you are both admirable agents, I understand that you're not exactly, well, let us say, infiltrators."

"Is that so," Wufei muttered.

"And they already knew who you were, so-"

"Go on," Heero said, conceding the point in the face of all evidence. "What are we doing here?"

"I have no idea," Quatre confessed, visibly puzzled. "As I said, communication between me, Une and- and the others was minimal. She may have decided to send you in as backup, though how she managed that is beyond me...Or it might have been a mole-test."

"A what?" Heero glanced away from the door.

"We wanted him." Quatre waved a hand at the boss. "And his information, and, eventually, his colleagues. But we also really wanted to determine who was selling us out."

"Do you know who it is?" Wufei gripped his stolen Magnum, intensely interested in the answer.

"Several people." Quatre sighed. "When Une constituted the Preventers, she used men and women from old Romefeller and Alliance bureaucracies. She was careful, but those organizations had been heavily compromised by the Syndicate. There was a war on, a criminal organization was a minor concern to them. We inherited the results of their carelessness. There are dozens of moles, small timers, very discreet. Each only giving the little bit of information they have access to, not taking any risks."

"They hacked into Ops security monitors," Wufei snapped. "They don't need moles, they-"

"Camera surveillance was a recent addition, thanks to this Nash person, among others," Quatre said smoothly. "Before, they had to rely on little bits of information from many different moles, which they'd collate together. Typical Syndicate MO. They couldn't get massive details from the system this way - which is good, because it allowed us to keep at least one of our undercover operatives hidden. We...hoped."

For just a second, Quatre lost the remote calm of the tactician. Wufei could sympathize; when Trowa had gone undercover, they couldn't have known if he'd already been compromised or not. For months now, 'Nash' and little pieces of information on Trowa could have come together somewhere in the Syndicate, and the first thing Quatre would have known about it would be when he was called to identify his best friend's body at the morgue. Anger and heart-sick anxiety twisted Quatre's usually benign mask before he hid them, as expertly as Trowa could.

"But you both know the damage those moles were causing. They sold out your location to those terrorists in Berlin, and warned that L3 criminal you were coming. Many other Agents have had their operations blown or lost their lives because of those...those traitors." Once more anger shone, ugly on the round curves of Quatre's face.

Then it was gone, replaced with a smile, and his eyes warmed with admiration. "We were rather helpless...until this absolutely wonderful woman came to Une with the break we needed!"

"Who?" Wufei blinked. Had Sally or Lu been in on this too?

"Her name is Anthea Stenhelz," Quatre murmured with visible adoration and Wufei nearly fell down. It had been a long, a very long night. He wasn't in the mood for any more astounding revelations, and this one was almost surreal.

"What?!" Heero was visibly just as taken aback.

"Anthea." Quatre glanced at them, as if vaguely surprised by their reaction. "You know her. She works in-"

"We know her," Heero ground out.

"That's right, I'm sorry." Quatre rubbed his bruised temple gingerly. "Of course you do, you were the ones who gave her the information that prompted her to look into the matter."

Gave her the information...?

Wufei, mind buzzing, remembered the ugly scene in Anthea's tiny cubicle of an office a while back. Heero, leaning over her desk as if he wanted to vault over it and grab her, snarling in uncharacteristic fury and waving the secret record Duo had photocopied for them, as if he were one second away from making her eat it. Anthea, shaking, her thin face twisted in anger and distress, papery skin pale, angular pink glasses askew, had been valiantly trying to defend herself and her procedures, her voice piping like that of a furious little mouse. And that was nothing to the way they'd torn into her when they'd come back from L3 with evidence of serious leaks. Ahh, good memories. Or so he had thought.

"Winner, start making sense. What the fucking hell does that bitch have anything to do with this?!"

"Wufei!" Quatre gasped, and glared at him reprovingly. "Anthea's performance was above and beyond the call of duty. When you and Heero gave her evidence of the leaks, she took it upon herself to trace them. In her own spare time, I might add, so as not to not arouse suspicion, and by herself, since she didn't know who had been compromised. Do you realize the kind of laborious tracking this entailed? It took her hundreds of hours, sleepless nights. Fortunately she had help, or she could have had a nervous breakdown! Your supervisor, Mr Grecko, figured out what she was doing. Those two spent long hours together collating all the information they had, all the leaks they were aware of, who had access to what information...Actually, I suspect the time spent together wasn't all that onerous to them. I think a small romance may be blooming there." Quatre dimpled and Wufei refrained himself from gagging with considerable effort.

"So they figured out who the leak was?" Heero ground out, as if he was trying to move on and forget everything Quatre had just said.

"No, but they narrowed it down to very likely candidates, and gave this list to Une. Fortunately they did this all very discreetly. Grecko was aware of how badly compromised even Ops might be. Une then set up a series of tests-"

"Feeding information to those people they suspected might be moles, then seeing which bits trickled down to the Syndicate and which bits did not. Deducing who the traitors were from what was passed on," Wufei finished through clenched teeth. "Real information, so no-one would realize it was tests. Information like our address and-"

"What?! They broke into your house?" Quatre stared at them, shocked.

"Yes. Some time ago. They-" Wufei licked his lips, unwilling to just blurt out-

Heero suddenly moved, crouching, lifting his borrowed gun and squeezing off three shots. Screams from the stairwell - it sounded like two men. Sounds of bodies tumbling back down the stairs. Wufei crouched near the other doorjamb and kept an eye out as well. Trowa must be doing something to the troops below, sowing massive confusion in their ranks, because so far they'd been remarkably undisturbed.

"I think Une may have deliberately sent us here in case you needed a hand, Winner. Our orders tonight came direct from her. She must have hoped we'd end up in the thick of things," Heero analyzed absently, his eyes and gun riveted on the stairwell. "I assume your location and presence here this week was another piece of entrapping information she fed some of the possible moles?"

"I have no idea!" Quatre replied brightly. "As I said, communication was minimal. I know I was supposed to come here this week and be bait. Get in here and do, well, this." Quatre nodded to the boss, who had come around though he still looked bleary. Wufei didn't bother to ask how Quatre had gotten loose. He was sure that, forewarned, and considered an easy target, the angelic-looking killer could have smuggled in any number of means of freeing himself and spreading havoc.

"I guess Une thought I might need backup," Quatre concluded. "Or she was testing some more moles. We'll find out eventually, she should be with the Preventers showing up right about now, if that is what I think it is," he concluded as he lifted his face towards the ceiling and the sound of an approaching chopper.

Wufei let Heero guard the door and once more prudently approached one of the windows facing the entrance to the yard.

Dawn was reluctantly creeping over the industrial zone, complete with the wail of sirens in lieu of birdsong. A slight morning mist folded the flashing lights back in on themselves, a kaleidoscope of blurred color. The chopper was a few blocks away still, apparently circling with a searchlight, looking for anyone who might have broken away early before the block was surrounded and cordoned off.

Men were scurrying around the yard, setting up lines of defense. Wufei tensed as Heero fired more shots from the door. Looked like someone was organizing the men and trying to find the boss. Would they fight it out or surrender? On the one hand, these weren't OZ troops ready to die for Treize or some cause. On the other hand, men like Vielle could expect a life-time in prison, and so would make sure there would be considerable resistance, maybe even try to hammer their way through the forces encircling them. Wufei bit his lip, quickly assessing the situation.

"Chang?"

"Not good," Wufei answered without turning around. "A lot more men than I had thought."

"Several teams came together here, to protect the boss and bring me in - and you too," Quatre pointed out thoughtfully.

"I'd say...sixty or seventy men, if they have as many out back and reserves in the hangars," Wufei reported, carefully keeping out of full line of sight of any snipers in the yard or beyond.

"How many on our side?" Heero asked.

Wufei stared through the faint mist from the canal. "Looks like thirty. And some of those will be making sure no-one gets a pot-shot at Une."

"So few?" Quatre gasped.

"Our resources have been badly stretched recently. A lot of our teams are out in the field," Heero explained from the door. Wufei heard shouts from downstairs. It sounded like someone was trying to mount an assault on this room.

"And they couldn't have mobilized too many people without warning the moles," Quatre concluded. He sounded merely analytical, but Wufei was ready to bet he felt more concern than he showed. "The cost will be high, I'm afraid."

"No, it won't be," Heero refuted matter-of-factly. He leaned forward cautiously and scooped up the FN P90 and three spare chargers from the bodies of the men Wufei had killed earlier.

"Not if we kill everyone from here to the ground floor," Wufei agreed as he turned from the window and also scooped up a rifle and a pack of ammo from the floor. He slipped the latter into his belt and headed towards the door. "If we attack them from the rear, that will disorganize them considerably."

Heero turned from his post to measure him with a glance. Then his eyes twitched towards Quatre.

"Winner can hold this position by himself." Wufei answered the unspoken objection calmly, chambering the next cartridge.

A minimal nod was the only agreement he expected or got. Entire strategies unfolded, discussed with a flick of an eye or a movement of a weapon. Something in Wufei started to sing with excitement and the sheer _rightness_ of it, clear and sharp as the edge of a knife.

"I am quite capable of holding this area by myself. That was the original plan," Quatre, lagging a bit behind the unspoken planning, finally put in.

"How were you planning on getting out? With him?" Wufei turned towards his friend and jerked his chin at the boss, fully awake now and glaring at them now in a mixture of pain, anxiety and frustrated defiance.

"I gave them my location in the building when I called. A taskforce should evacuate him." Quatre put away his HK. He quickly went up to the boss and secured his hands with the sleeves of the man's coat, then used his own sports jacket as a crude blindfold. The boss started to swear and threaten, harsh words abruptly interrupted as Quatre used the sleeves of the jacket to gag him, unruffled as if he did this on a regular basis.

"They should be landing on the roof with the chopper," Quatre continued, standing smoothly and taking his HK out of his belt again. "Once the landing site is clear."

Once more the partners exchanged glances.

"I'll clear the roof," Wufei muttered a touch sullenly. He wanted to go with Heero on the main assault of the enemy holed up in the house, to break the back of their resistance before the Preventers had to run that gauntlet. And he wanted to watch his partner's back. But the mission came first. "I'll join you as soon as the taskforce lands. Maybe you should just hole up here until I -" One look at Heero's set face told him to forget that brilliant idea.

"Don't go shooting up everything at random," Wufei grumbled in resignation, wondering what he could say to convince Heero to be cautious and knowing there probably wasn't anything. " _Someone_ might get caught in the crossfire."

Heero glanced at Quatre, who'd understood this part of the conversation just fine.

"You're clear to do as much damage as you want," Quatre outlined deliberately, eyes piercing. "No-one you're likely to meet deserves to live." Then Quatre must have realized that, apart from telling them that they were not likely to shoot Trowa accidentally, his words had another, more immediate and decidedly unpleasant meaning. For all that he was an efficient tactician and a strong fighter, Quatre was not a bloodthirsty or merciless killer. "Um, I meant-"

"We know what you meant," Wufei reassured him. Though at this point, so heavily outnumbered, the kid gloves were just going to have to come off. Wufei caught sight of Heero checking the machine gun. Well, Wufei's kid gloves were going to come off. He didn't think Heero had ever owned a pair.

A final glance between the two partners. Then Wufei smoothly stepped out into the hallway while Heero crouched and started to fire at the stairwell with the SMG.

They made it to the stairwell without any problems. Heero glared at Wufei to get going; the iron stairs to the rooftop access were behind them. Wufei glared right back; he’d be going, but not before he'd helped Heero clear out a defensible position downstairs. So many years on the edge had sharpened Wufei's warrior instincts. He could almost feel armed men moving around the floor below them, getting into position, ready to shoot at anybody coming down the steps.

Heero broke the contest of wills with a reluctant shrug of assent, then leapt down the stairs, almost catching Wufei off guard as well as the men waiting for them. Wufei cursed in a way that would have made Maxwell proud and followed, picking off the two armed men who'd stood up from behind a fallen desk in the big open area, aiming at his partner.

The FN hacking out its deadly hail, Heero dodged, jumped and darted through a doorway at the bottom of the stairs, throwing himself on the ground and to one side. Wufei was a second behind him, crouching behind the protection of the doorjamb, trusting his partner to clean out the room the same way Heero trusted Wufei to watch his back while he did so. Wufei's rifle punched two fat holes through the thin plastic of a few cubicle partitions that had been left in the big office area. He didn't wing anybody, but from the shouts of alarm and the sudden scuffle as men crawled back to safer positions, he'd put the fear of ex-pilots and Preventers into them.

The SMG had fired just one round behind his back. Wufei had absently noted the noise of a body propelled against a wall by the force of the strafe, and the sound of a window breaking. Then he felt Heero approach him cautiously, moving around Bruckheim's body which Wufei had dropped there earlier.

"Go!" Heero hissed as he crouched by the other side of the door. A bullet bit plaster and the flimsy inner partition near his head. He didn't even blink.

Wufei groused and glared, but he went, waiting for Heero to let loose a volley from the FN and darting back up the stairs, towards the steps leading to the roof. The crashing staccato of the submachine gun accompanied him all the way up to the small door at the uppermost flight of the stairs.

He wasn't in the best of moods when he kicked the door open. Three people stood at the edge of the roof shooting at the Preventers below. Another was running to join them them. They'd used the fire-escape to get up to the roof.

They turned- the one on the fire-escape died immediately, catapulted over the handrail with a rifle shot. Another fired wildly. Wufei didn't even bother to move as he drew the pistol from his belt and shot him twice automatically, chest and head. Then he had to dodge as another hostile - a woman, long hair catching on a cheap flack jacket - fired at him with much better aim than her erstwhile companion. He smoothly stepped around the little concrete building which held the door to the roof and the end of the stairwell. Bullets spat as they hit the sidings while he reloaded the rifle.

The two remaining hostiles shouted instructions at each other - and then just shouted in alarm. The heavy beat of the approaching chopper quickly drowned out their voices. Wufei walked around his defense and shot them both while they were gaping upwards. He hit their two jackets deliberately, pitching them back. The man fell with a sickened grunt, dropping his gun and clasping his ribs. The woman kept a hand on her sniper rifle but, faced with the twin muzzles of Wufei's gun and twelve-gauge, dropped it reluctantly. Then with a groan of pain, she sank back to the ground.

The chopper was a very light model, three-seater only, to insure the roof bore the weight. It landed with a wash of wind and a furious noise. Wufei crouched and protected his face from the grit being blown up by the rotor, while keeping an eye on the last two hostiles. He was ready to throw down his own weapons, in case the men in the chopper didn't recognize him, but he needn't have worried.

Two people jumped out, leaving the pilot in his cockpit. One was Louis Armand, Wufei noted with relief, an excellent operative. Armand ran towards the hostiles, holding them in his sights as he approached. The other man trotted towards Wufei.

"Thank god you're all right!" Even shouting above the noise of the helicopter's engine, Foxwood's relief was as audible as his slight London accent.

"Sam." Wufei nodded politely, as if they'd met at one of Une's office parties. He saw Foxwood roll his eyes and grin briefly, but then Wufei was being carefully examined.

"Where's Heero?" Foxwood's voice was suddenly taut over the noise of the slowing rotors.

"Downstairs. I need to go back him up." Wufei walked towards the door, keeping his head down.

"Okay. How's the floor beneath- no, don't tell me. Cleaned out." Sam was still shouting, though the noise was cut down when they closed the door access behind them.

"We didn't check, but there should only be Winner and your target, unless they got around Yuy." Which wouldn't have happened, Wufei thought fiercely. Not in a hundred years.

"Good. Can you cover me for a bit? I'll go fetch the git and then you can go."

"Okay," Wufei answered reluctantly. He went down the stairs ahead of Foxwood and cast a careful eye over what was visible of the fourth floor.

"I thought you didn't do this 'active shit' anymore," Wufei whispered, hearing Foxwood move up behind him and crouch stiffly. The old copper was holding his MP Heckler as if he was never going to let it go again, for all the administrative jobs in the world.

"Yeah, well, you know how thin we were stretched. Even the Lady's out there with that custom Viper of hers. She didn't tell me, Chang." The change of subject was abrupt and the words bitten out. "I wouldn't have sent you and Yuy in blind if I'd-"

"I know, Sam. We were okay. Someone was watching out for us."

"Yeah, so Une made me understand. I'm still fucking mad though," Sam growled. He was a cop, not a soldier. He didn't put any truck with the notion of sacrificing pawns to win the game. He just wanted, if at all possible, for 'his girls and boys' to do their duty but come back alive and enjoy their pension one day.

"Go get the target," Wufei murmured. "I'll make sure no-one comes up the stairs, or from the other rooms." They'd not had time to clean out this floor. He kept a careful eye on the doors and stairwell as Foxwood trotted towards the front office.

Five minutes later Sam was back, dragging the boss with him. He was muttering under his breath. Reading the filth his rights, apparently, a habit Sam couldn't rid himself of even though the Preventers' mandate didn't require it. Wufei carefully covered their trip back to the chopper, watching with cold satisfaction as the man, whose name he still didn't know, baulked; the boss had realized he was going to be spirited away from the fight, and that whatever his men did, he was well and truly caught. Justice, Wufei had learned, was a nuanced and relative thing, not the absolute that Meiran had believed it to be, and which he had valiantly tried to live for once. But that didn't mean it wasn't real. Wufei felt its shape and weight as he watched the criminal get dragged off by Sam despite his futile resistance. Foxwood shoved the boss into the helicopter, gun planted in his side, then followed him and closed the door. Wufei, Armand and the last two hostiles ducked their heads as the blades caught and lifted it away.

Wufei didn't wait to see what Armand might want him to do. He had his duty. First, check that Quatre didn't need him to do anything crucial and mission-related, and it better be fucking important if he did. Then go see if Heero was okay. There hadn't been any more shots from downstairs while he waited for Sam, so Heero must have finished there and moved on. The noise from the line of resistance outside covered any signs of where his partner might be further down in the building.

He stopped suddenly, all senses alert, gripping his gun. The sound he'd heard was so faint he couldn't identify it, but his instincts were telling him it was out of place, and that meant danger. It had come from the room where Quatre had taken down his captors and held the boss. A prickle of worry walked up Wufei's spine. He ghosted forward, ears pricked. Quatre should be in there alone. Wufei's senses were telling him this wasn't the case, and he prayed to his ancestors that he wasn't about to lose a friend.

A quick glance, darting forward and back again to avoid any bullets - and Wufei leaned back against the wall, staring at the dirty paint on the other side of the large hallway, eyes very wide.

Oh. Okay.

Though he really didn't want it to, the brief image kept dancing in front of his eyes. Quatre, perfectly healthy, pinning Trowa to the far wall in a desperate kiss.

Well. Well! No surprise there. He'd seen that one coming a mile away. Hell, he'd been expecting that to happen all during the war, but then that messy bit with Zero, and circumstances, and the solid friendship and mutual reliance that had sprung up between Quatre and Trowa, and Duo as well while on Peacemillion... Wufei had felt - without paying all that much attention to things - that it had cooled off the physical aspect of- But apparently the end of the war had been the start of something else.

"I've got to go." Trowa spoke in a whisper, as if the habit of being hidden still clung to him.

"Yes." Quatre's voice was calm and matter of fact. But the next words weren't. They were tight with repressed emotion, and muffled. "Take. Care."

"Oof. Careful. I might need that spine you're squeezing."

There was something like a miserable chuckle from Quatre. "You sound like Duo."

"I wonder why." Then the voice dropped to a low whisper and Wufei, suddenly and to his absolute horror, realized he was spying on his friends in a moment of intimacy. "I'll be seeing you soon. In a few weeks. And I'll be careful-"

"No, you won't," Quatre sighed. "But...go. Before I change my mind and keep you here."

"No, you won't," Trowa countered softly. There was the sound of another embrace and Wufei crept away in absolute silence, back towards the stairs. This was really none of his business. It had been unwise for Trowa to come check on Quatre when he should be getting out. For that matter, Une probably expected Quatre to be on that helicopter instead of Sam, so he wouldn't get accidentally shot by the Preventers. But Wufei wasn't about to judge. If they'd managed to find something, some tenderness and comfort between them, then he supposed he was happy for them. He told himself, ignoring the faint bitter taste of that thought. No matter. He should leave them to it. And...he didn't want to see Trowa. Eventually it wouldn't be a problem, once he'd meditated and accepted the inevitable, but right now...

Besides, he needed to make sure someone was watching that idiot partner of his, since he'd apparently gone and stormed the rest of the building all by his stupid self.

He counted six incapacitated bodies on the floor below, plus a lot of bullet holes in the walls. Many were concentrated around the door where he'd left Heero crouching for protection, but he saw no traces of blood there. Every window had been shot out, and the echoes of distant battle sounded from below, but here the dust and faint fumes of cordite hung in the enshrouding silence found in cemeteries. Wufei gripped his weapons and ran on, vaguely wondering how Trowa had gotten up here and how he counted on getting out again. But with Trowa's acrobatic skills and talents of making his lanky frame invisible, he'd have no problems. Wufei, by contrast, would probably have to fight his way out the hard way.

No signs of his partner on the third and second floor - plenty of signs actually, of the fallen body variety, but no annoying, suicidal, won't-wait-for-no-backup partner. There was no one on the ground floor. Apparently the fight had been carried to the compound outside. Wufei remembered the large area strewn with junk and clenched his teeth. It was not going to be fun, hunting the bastards out from that area, and even a cornered hare bit hard, as the saying from his ancestors' homeland went.

 

 

Wufei quickly resigned himself to not finding Heero in the chaos. Instead, he found Sunil and Gills, two of the special ops agents he knew, and he stuck by them to avoid getting shot by his own side. It was not an irony he would have appreciated.

Shrugging Sunil's borrowed Preventer jacket over his more slender frame, he inched around the upside-down body of a later-day Chevy Fusion. He quickly glanced through the window of the garage then pulled back. It was at the back of the yard, a big brick building where the haulage company used to keep its machinery, and the present day criminals kept their exit vehicles. He hoped that Trowa had found a better way out than this; the garage and indeed the whole yard had been as efficiently sealed as the Preventers' meagre forces could manage.

Logic said the Preventers should wait until the thugs realized there was no way out and surrendered. A few had already come bolting out the back door, hands in the air, to be arrested by regular agents at the gate. Wufei should really wait, but he'd seen Vielle head into the garage just as he rejoined Sunil and Gills, and that was one man he definitely did not want escaping.

Wufei inched closer, then froze, instinct kicking in as he heard a horrified scream of protest from within the garrage-

A flash of light through the windows and doors - and the walls of the garage suddenly bowed out as if heaving a deep sigh before giving up and resigning itself to gravity. Wufei, flung to the garbage-strewn ground by the concussive blast, saw the roof dangle for a seemingly eternal second before collapsing in on the wreckage soundlessly. Not soundlessly - Wufei swore weakly, his words muffled in his ears, and shook his head. He was peppered with fragments of wood, glass and concrete, and his ears felt about as healthy as the garage.

Gills helped him to his feet then walked Sunil, who'd been swiped in the knee by a bit of fallen wreckage, away from the remains. Behind them, a few Preventers in flame-retardant gear were doing their best for whatever survivors they could hope to find. None, Wufei surmised, pretty familiar with explosions and their consequences by now. Please, eternal ones, let Trowa have chosen another route...

Vielle must have realized he was cornered. Either he'd been trying something clever and mishandled the explosives, or he'd taken the easy way out. Somehow, Wufei doubted the piece of shit had the backbone for that last option...

Gills went to evacuate his partner from the battlefield when it was obvious that Wufei was only shaken and recovering quickly, and did not need assistance. The explosion had blown away whatever little fight there was left out of the criminals. Only a few more pockets of resistance, heralded by scattered shots, remained. Wufei glanced over at the gates to the compound as a flash of gold caught his eyes. Winner should really learn to cover that hair of his, Wufei grumbled internally. The former Sandrock pilot was near the armored command car, talking to Une and Grecko. Wufei was just glad not to see Anthea hanging around. Damn, he and Heero had cowed the bitch for awhile, but now she was going to be insufferable. He watched morosely as Une, Quatre and Grecko got into the car and drove off. Probably going to explain all this fuss and mess in the heart of ESUN territory to the board of that particular organization. Quatre's diplomatic abilities would definitely be called upon. Wufei turned again, looking for something else to do, but no-one seemed to have any need for him at that point.

He saw Heero from a distance, back turned towards him, and a small knot of tension he hadn't wanted to acknowledge suddenly loosened.

Well, there you had it. It had been circling him like a vulture all evening - hell, since they had gotten back from L3 where he'd had that little glimpse of...something. He could keep his head stuck in the sand or he could admit that-...that every time this past month that Heero and he had split up to fight, having his partner out of his sight had felt like a small piece of barbed wire slowly tightening in his gut.

He'd been trying to convince himself that it was just normal worry for Yuy, the man who brought out the best in him. As Heero's injury in Berlin had shown, either of them could get killed tomorrow, and then the partnership would end. It was normal to feel tense about the possibility of change, of losing what he had, he told himself repeatedly, and knew that he was lying, just a little bit.

He'd disembowel himself before he let Heero catch even the slightest hint of any of this; that was one fairly clear indication that this reaction was probably outside the bounds of the arrangement they had.

Wufei stayed where he was, forty feet behind Heero. His eyes stayed fixed on his partner's strong back as he took stock, and he mercilessly analyzed his own actions over the past few hours; how he'd cleared the roof, covered for Sam, went to check on Quatre first...He felt a measure of cold relief in concluding that a bit of worrying hadn't compromised his ability to operate as an agent, or as Heero's partner.

Heero was ordering the Preventers around and they were obeying him as if he were God. Wufei felt a little smile cross his features and quickly removed it. His partner wasn't hindered by anything as messy as sentimentality or whatever. He was doing his job. For all he knew, Wufei was one of the bodies being dragged out of the burning wreck of a garage, but he wasn't even looking around to check. The man was just so dedicated, so focused. Wufei found a distant pride in that, cold and hard as ice, but pride nonetheless.

A young cadet neared Heero as if afraid of being bitten, and asked him a question. Heero glanced at his timid accoster, and then he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Wufei without even looking around. The cadet followed his gesture and nodded, then sped towards a startled and slightly confused Wufei. Oh, apparently Heero _had_ seen him. When had he checked-... ? Trust the perfect soldier not to miss anything. Or maybe he'd had Dr J put eyes in the back of his head. That would explain a lot. The cadet's arrival interrupted Wufei's internal grumbling.

"Agent Chang?" The cadet looked at him curiously, as if wondering how someone a year or two younger than himself could have earned that title. He hadn't looked at Heero with such insolence.

The cadet suddenly wilted as Wufei turned towards him slowly with a long hard look, like a dragon contemplating lunch.

"Yes?" Wufei ground out. He did not need this newbie to add to his annoyance tonight.

"Mr Winner asked me to make sure you got this," the man yelped, thrust something into Wufei's hands and ran off to the safer grounds of the battlefield.

Wufei glanced down at what he'd been given. It was a rumpled piece of paper, a torn print-out of a directory and file paths. And the root user name and password. Wufei smoothed it out slowly. The folder containing the files listed was titled surv0105. The files were in vid record format. Wufei swallowed painfully, and read the words scribbled across the bottom of the half-page. They were hurried but still graceful, Quatre's loose, flowing script.

'Wufei, someone gave me this for you. You or Heero can use this access. Do it in the next hour, before the system is impounded for evidence. Delete those files you think appropriate.

Both silence and words are the gifts of friends. Please accept whichever you need, whenever you need them.

QRW'

Several thoughts wound their way through Wufei's mind. The risk for Trowa to have gotten this information; 'Nash' would not have had access to the root user name and password. The fact that Trowa would never, ever tell Quatre about- about what he'd seen on that video feed, but that Quatre had obviously already been aware of it. And had said nothing. But had let Wufei know that he knew. The thought of his friends, breaking the Preventer chain of evidence in true ex-terrorist, 'above the law' fashion, for their sakes. No. More precisely, as Trowa - and Quatre - had given this to him...for his sake. And they were leaving him the choice of informing Heero of what he might do, or not. That was a lot to think about. He would be meditating about all the edges on this startling gift in the days to come.

But one fact he didn't have to think about, because it was there like an offered hand as he struggled to rise up from a blow that had knocked him to the ground. His friends knew. In a certain measure, it appeared they understood the complexities of the arrangement. And even if they didn't, they were not about to judge, or even talk about it unless he needed them to.

A gift of friends.

Would he tell Heero about the files? His partner might not want to do anything illegal to hide something which he probably saw no reason to worry about.

His partner might ask him why this disturbed Wufei so much...

Wufei quickly folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket as he noticed Heero walking towards him; he was looking around, making sure there was nothing left to do.

In his mind's eye, the image of his partner was, as always, tinged with the memory of that hard, emotionless sixteen-year-old killer, staring at Wufei coldly and explaining that the other pilots did not posses the emotional detachment necessary to see sex as a need to relieve, a purely physical problem. Wufei remembered agreeing.

Quatre and Trowa embraced in his mind, their worry for the other obvious. Trowa had taken a big risk, coming back to check on Quatre. Quatre had taken a risk sticking around for him. They'd both taken risks, particularly Trowa, in getting Wufei this information.

Heero was right; affection and emotions influenced your decisions, overrode the cold, hard rules of necessity. Wufei baulked at ever following Trowa and Quatre down that road; Heero would be appalled if he thought Wufei would take such risks and endanger the mission. Those times during the war, Wufei recalled, Heero had looked at him, weighed him, tested him even on some occasions, to ensure that Wufei kept the warrior's edge that made him a valuable partner as well as adequate sex relief. It didn't take much imagination to guess how Heero might react.

No. Better not go there.

Heero examined him quickly as he approached, checking for injuries. Wufei nodded, after checking Heero himself since the man could be missing a leg and wouldn't even ask for a band-aid until the mission was over. Then Wufei turned to examine the battlefield once more, counting the bodies, as well as the greater number of men who'd surrendered and were being arrested.

He glanced back at Heero to comment, and found his partner still checking him over.

"Are you...all right?"

Wufei blinked at the uncharacteristic tone and hesitation in Heero's voice, and glanced quickly down at himself. Hell, maybe he was the one missing a limb and he hadn't noticed in the adrenaline rush. Sunil's borrowed jacket looked like it had been through a wash and rinse cycle with a couple of razor blades, and shrapnel had sliced up his coat and his skin beneath, but nothing serious or missing that he could see. He glanced up to realize that Heero's measuring stare was concentrating on his face, and Wufei instinctively passed a hand over it.

"What? Do I have blood on my nose?"

Heero just stared. Wufei remembered him staring this way back in the room where they'd been captured, after they'd killed their guards. As if Heero was trying to ask him if he was injured without insulting him or calling his word into doubt.

"You have a few cuts," Heero finally said. His hand lifted towards Wufei, interrupted its movement halfway - as Wufei stared at it, wide-eyed - and then touched Heero's face instead, brushing the cheekbone and forehead. "Here and here."

"Oh. Stitches?"

"No, probably not."

Who gives a shit, then, Wufei thought, slightly bewildered. The way Heero had been acting, he'd assumed half his face had been accidentally melted away by the explosion.

Heero looked at him carefully, then appeared to relax. An eyebrow lifted laconically. "You look okay, actually."

"There were only four people on the roof. And you went and took out everybody else," Wufei added acidly. "These scratches are from the garage. I was nearby."

"I meant-" Heero interrupted himself and shrugged. "Mission successful." He turned abruptly as if dismissing the subject, to Wufei's obscure relief.

"Yes." Wufei snuck a glance at his partner's profile as Heero surveilled the wreckage, looking satisfied.

This was what he had. And it was probably for the best. He had chosen to live his life for strength, for perfection, for this arrangement. This was what he had and he wouldn't lose it because of some weakness of his, some vague want. The time on L3 would be ignored.

"It was nice of you to leave a few of them for your colleagues," he added, dryly. "They did come all this way after all."

Heero's lips twitched. "Hn. How about you? Are you still restless?"

"No, I think I worked out my aggression," Wufei answered sarcastically.

He expected it might become a regular thing; to worry just a bit when Heero went charging recklessly into battle; to feel short- tempered when he had too much time to himself, and the cold, hard edge of his chosen life pressed against him. But he was a warrior, he could keep himself under control, in the heat of battle or through meditation. Eventually this weakness would die, and Heero never need know.

"I will definitely whip your ass in a sword-fight tomorrow," he added pleasantly.

Heero merely snorted and walked towards Une. Wufei followed contentedly, fiddling with the piece of paper in his pocket. He'd lose Heero for a few minutes, find a terminal and get rid of a few files. He couldn't count on Sally and the others to be as discreet as Trowa and Quatre, and he wasn't interested in friendly teasing or discussions about relationships that didn't exist.

He had all that he wanted, he told himself firmly.

And knew he was lying. Just a little bit. But he could live with that.


	27. Masks, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: two-part side story that can be rather unpleasant reading if you’re sensitive to certain topics. Contains accidental and voluntary voyeurism, nasty concepts and language. Chapter 27 and 28 can be completely skipped if desired, they do not impact the main story in any way.

"A cat in gloves catches no mice."  
\--- English Proverb

 

Nash was a bastard.

It was Nash's style to grin in mocking victory as he finally found the flaw in Yuy's defenses. He'd been all over his targets' home like a spider for two nights now, clinging to walls and examining windows, climbing the roof several times, poking at the ventilation, the rooftop access, the doors.

Nash was a bastard, and proud of his abilities.

Trowa was normally proud of his abilities as well. But not when they were used against two of his best friends.

Not the slightest tremor of doubt showed in Nash's hands as he disabled the security on the roof access. It had been touch and go, touch and go, Yuy was good. But now he was in.

Not the slightest tremor of doubt flickered in Trowa's mind as Nash let himself slip down into the attic space. This was his mission, even if he didn't like it.

Trowa was buried deep in Nash, and had been for months now. He was the ghost behind Nash's thoughts, nudging the Syndicate mercenary in one direction or the other, gently, by persuasion rather than by force, as if Nash were one of his lions, his own creature grudgingly jumping through Trowa's hoops only when absolutely required to do so, and on sufferance.

Nash smiled cruelly as he disabled the lesser security on the attic's trapdoor. There was no one here to watch the act, but since it wasn't, in fact, entirely an act, that didn't matter. Nash had his own life, his own habits - ugly ones for the most part - his own thoughts, behavioral patterns, and motivations that Trowa had painstakingly built into him. Trowa had worked well: Nash had an internal logic that could carry him through and keep him acting naturally even in the most stressful situations, running in the foreground almost on automatic while Trowa lurked in the back and watched dispassionately; he was very good at that.

He carefully let himself down into the hallway of the Preventers' home, casually and unhesitatingly violating their territory. They weren't Nash's friends. Nash didn't have any, actually. He was a bastard after all.

Ghosting down the hallway, Nash went first into Heero's room - not that Nash would know it was Heero's. It was Trowa who guessed at the identity of the occupant. Nash was momentarily surprised at the extremely bare and crude furnishings in the big room, stranding the military bunk bed and utilitarian metal desk at either end of the large space without much to join them together. Trowa, hidden behind the mask, merely smiled with melancholy fondness. Heero...

Nash went about his business. He examined the wall around the desk carefully. Crude plaster covering bricks: good. The small drill hummed as Nash thoughtfully pulled it out and pressed the trigger a few times, measuring the space with his eyes, judging. He drilled tiny holes into plaster and brick, and inserted his cameras. They were about the size and shape of thick sewing needles: encased fiberoptic receptors, a micro power pack and a broadcasting chip the size of a gnat. Because of their tiny size, they were nearly invisible to the human eye once planted into the wall - and their image feed was so distorted by their tiny aperture as to be unusable, which was why most people never thought to look for something so small. Only the real pros knew that if you placed numbers of them at judiciously spaced intervals, you could use image enhancement and analysis software to collate their individual, distorted images into a whole, congruent and very detailed picture. So detailed, you could read words on paper or on a screen, if the cameras were close enough and the angle was about right.

Of course, these Gundam pilots were pros, but hopefully they weren't so paranoid as to check for these on a regular basis.

Trowa was rather hoping Heero, for one, would be paranoid enough. It would cause a huge fuss if these were found, and their discovery would send Heero and Wufei off in an uncontrolled search for the culprit that would make Une's sting operation horribly complicated and might compromise Trowa's cover, with terminal results. But the infiltrator was worried about what these tiny spies might pick up, what missions and plans their uncaring eyes might capture. They could put Heero and Wufei into mortal danger...

Nash naturally applied every ounce of his skill into setting up his cameras; this was an important mission for him, the chance to finally getting some real recognition by the Syndicate, and of course obtaining a whole shitload of money. Trowa watched himself bug his friend's room with all the care he could muster, knowing Nash's efforts could cost Heero his life, but unable to do anything about it within the difficult parameters of his mission. Heero and Wufei were tough, much tougher than the Syndicate or a bastard like Nash could ever realize. They'd be okay. They _would_ be okay.

The Syndicate's hired man continued his work. Nash was even more careful in hiding the audio bug, which was bulkier, the size and shape of a tiny cracker. He needed it near the computer, in case his target got a phone call while working. Hopefully the room's occupant wasn't a pacer; the mike was quite small and its range wasn't all that good. Nash finally placed it in the hollow of the corner beneath the desk.

Next, the pickup unit. After some thought, he lay down on his stomach beneath the desk and attacked the plaster there. He dug into the brickwork, inserted the unit, then stuck a piece of gauze over it, and brought out the small pot of spackle he carried with him for just this purpose. The unit was the receptor that would pick up the feeds from the cameras and the mike; due to their size, they could only broadcast their stolen sounds and pictures a few feet, they didn't have the power to do more. The pickup unit, the size of a big matchbox, received their input and broadcast it out to the bigger box that he'd already attached to the telephone wires on the hub nearby. It would relay everything back to the Syndicate's dedicated server on the other side of this shit-hole of a city. God, he hated this place, Nash grumbled as he carefully vacuumed up the dust and brick remnants with the tiny suction device he always carried with him during these kinds of missions. Europe in winter was the arse-hole of the planet. The only way this could be worse would be if he was still in Minsk.

Nash went artistic with the spackle, making sure he reproduced every whorl and grain of the original plaster. He'd let it dry, and, when he'd finished all the rest of the work and the spackle had dried, he'd come back and sponge it with dirty water until it matched the rest of the off-white wall.

He sat down carefully in the chair - automatically noting its precise position relative to the desk, to put it back exactly as it was. He picked up his comm and flicked it on.

"Stop jerking yourself off and pick up the laptop, Bruckheim," he snapped.

There was a startled noise, followed by a disgusted sigh. The comm crackled.

“Is that you, Nash?”

"No, it's the ghost of General Khushrenada. You were warned it made you deaf, right, Bruckheim?"

There was the two seconds of silence that signaled Bruckheim mouthing obscenities at the comm. He was the Syndicate man in Nash's taskforce, a sort of lieutenant to him, and Nash never lost a single occasion to make his life miserable. It kept Bruckheim on a leash, and it insured the Syndicate knew that Nash was tough and only respected those who deserved it. Besides, to someone like Nash, Bruckheim's mixture of overblown toughness, petty arrogance and obvious vulnerabilities was like a red flag to a bull, and he just attacked him out of habit. Nash was, after all, a bastard.

"Get your thumb out of your ass and pick up the laptop," Nash repeated, heavily. "It's set up to play the files as they are produced on the server. I need to test audio. I'm muting my comm. If you cannot pick up audio on the laptop's speakers, then tell me, okay?"

A grumble. Nash muted his comms.

"I'm assuming that you're actually smart enough to turn on the laptop and open up the appropriate program," Nash said to the air above the desk after two minutes. "And that you remember where the volume control is, if-"

“I can hear you.” The tone was sulky. Bruckheim was such a petty wanker. Nash couldn't for the life of him figure out how the man was a Syndicate regular. Most of Nash's men, the squad of mercs hired for the Brussels' job, were better than this waste of skin.

"Good. Now can you see me?"

“Yes. The image is really clear.” Bruckheim sounded reluctantly impressed.

"Testing. Which finger am I holding up?"

“Very funny...” Grumble.

"Hopefully he writes with his monitor pushed to one side. I'll put some more spies in the ceiling above the desk, give us another camera angle. Stand by to test them when I'm done."

“'Kay.”

The next room to be treated was the study. Wufei's study, Trowa deduced. Nash leaned over and stared at the spines of books in their shelves, a faint sneer on his face. Then he made sure that the movements of anyone sitting at the desk would not be missed, and every sound recorded.

Next was the second bedroom. Nash turned on himself several times, around and around, trying to figure out the best place to stick his spies, since there was no obvious spot in the soberly furnished room where the second rat might sit or stand while working or talking on the phone.

Maybe he doesn't work in here at all; Trowa considered that thought tentatively. Maybe Nash didn't need to bug this room. Trowa would rather avoid it if possible; Heero wouldn't know what invasion of privacy was if it came up and kicked him in the stones, but Wufei would quite easily compensate for this lack in his partner by being overly sensitive about it. Wufei hated to be watched while he was meditating or sparring with Heero, Trowa remembered; he was an intensely private man.

The Preventer probably didn't do much work in here, not with a study next door, but Nash was not going to let that argument sway him. Better safe than sorry, was what Nash would think; Trowa had constructed him to be a careful and thorough man. Nash wouldn't want to be caught short if ever the two targets came in here to discuss something important, or left some documents lying around at a good angle. After some thought, Nash planted his spies around the bed and in the ceiling above it, and two audio bugs on either side of the room. Maybe the bed's owner curled up under the covers with some late-night paperwork. Maybe the pig talked in his sleep. Maybe he had hookers over and he told them all about his job to impress the shit out of them while he fucked them. Yeah, if only it would be that easy...

Nash went down the stairs and whistled at the expanse of the large main room. Fuck, where to put the monitors. Well, he could probably ignore the toolshop section. He looked it over anyway, reluctantly impressed. Downright jealous actually. Man, these pigs lived like...well, they lived like mercs, almost. No wonder. They were fucking Gs; everybody knew the five pilots had been mercenaries for the colonies. Stood to reason. And now they were Une's pet rats. Little shits...Like a lot of ex-OZ personnel, Nash had a deep and thoroughly justified grudge against the Gundam pilots who'd ruined his career and forced him into criminality. He repeated his hateful litany against the five pilots so many times it fell off his tongue perfectly naturally. Trowa, in his more depressed moments, almost hated himself as a result; the downside of living so deep within the mask that was a bastard like Nash.

After some thought and a bit of swearing, Nash put the cameras around the kitchen area, making sure they had a picture of the counter, then above the couch, though they were so high up on the ceiling he wasn't sure they could catch much. The audio pickup, buried in the couch's carefully re-sewn seams, would be more useful. Nash put away his sewing kit and his climber's tackle attentively, made sure none of his fiddling was visible, tested the lot with a grumbling Bruckheim, and left with an ugly satisfied smile. It wasn't entirely about the money and the place in the Syndicate he'd earn. He enjoyed this. Not just the use of his abilities, gathered as one of OZ's surveillance specialists during the war. He enjoyed the feel of violating his targets, invading their home territory, wielding unseen power over them while they were at their most vulnerable. Watching them lay themselves bare.

"I'll be seeing you guys," he murmured at the empty main room, the deserted couch. His voice was sadistically gleeful. Nash was, as has already been stated, a bastard.


	28. Masks, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two parts posted together, make sure you read Part I first or this won't make much sense.

"A cat may stare at the king."  
\--- European proverb (Dutch/German origin)

 

"I hate this part. I wish we had some shit," Vielle groaned for the third time.

Nash said nothing. Vielle was a power in the Syndicate. The greasy man wasn't very subtle, or all that smart, but he was sadistic enough for even Nash to respect him a little bit, and he was well placed in the organization's hierarchy. So Nash carefully kept his answer - 'if the boss caught us doing shit in here while we're supposed to be watching these guys, he'd rip off our balls and feed them to the guard dogs' - to himself.

Vielle glanced at his watch again. "When did their plane touch down?"

"Six hours ago," Nash answered, managing not to point out that Vielle had only been here the last two. Nash had been the one on watch since the vermin's plane had touched down at Brussels' shuttle port. He hadn't been given a choice; there'd been nobody around who had the security clearance to relieve him in front of the monitors. The Syndicate were quite justifiably paranoid about all their sources of information. Only four people were allowed in the computer room. Nash, since it was his programs and cameras that were doing the job, Panagiotis, the Greek computer expert, Vielle and Corazon, the other Syndicate lieutenant in this area. And the big cheeses, of course, but Nash had yet to meet any of those; they wouldn't even arrive in Brussels until the plan swung into action.

"Where are they? I hate this part, waiting." Vielle blew out his heavy cheeks and shifted in the flimsy plastic chair. His jacket crunched against the back. Vielle was trying to rise higher in the Syndicate, and he was attempting to dress the part. Somebody needed to tell him that a suit wasn't the way to go about it, not if it was dark blue polyester with a white shirt and rumpled green tie, but he was a violent man and so far no-one had had the guts.

"They're good little rodents." Nash answered Vielle's question and ignored the complaint. "They probably went to report to Une and lick her feet a few times. They'll be back soon."

He hoped so, anyway. A surveillance pro like Nash didn't get twitchy after only a few hours of duty. After a few weeks, then, yeah, but a few hours were nothing. _If_ he had another pro with him. Being stuck with Antoine Vielle was a lot more annoying than a mere stake-out warranted.

Nash stretched, letting his lean muscles play against each other, keeping fit and on edge by force of habit. That and his sense of duty had been drilled into him in the army. He stood up to stretch his legs and make his rounds, checking the rest of the equipment while he was at it.

The room they were confined to was long, six meters by two, the same proportions as a coffin, Nash had thought on several occasions in the past six hours. Metal shelves lined the long walls. They were loaded with small monitors, dozens of them. Nash walked along the shelves, stepping over ropes of cables, observing scenes of one empty room after another. He'd not put all these spies in, some had been done by the previous specialist, before he had met with an unfortunate accident and the Syndicate had needed a new man. Nash had had to go and redo some of those jobs, actually; he was much better than their previous hire. The bosses were quite impressed with his work so far. The Yuy-Chang stake-out would be his crowning glory.

He glanced back at Vielle, who was cleaning his teeth with a fingernail while keeping a distracted eye on the main monitor. Nothing yet. Nash checked the massive servers recording all the information, whirring at the back of the room where all the cables came to nest. Then he went down the other line of monitors. Anyone on duty at the screens had to check them, to make sure the tracking program was properly following their targets around as much as possible, and that the audios were working. It was the middle of the afternoon, but Nash dutifully passed his eyes over the dozens of monitors busy filming pictures of empty houses. The only camera feeds that would be worth watching at this time of day would be the ones in the Preventer HQ, the ESUN security chambers and Ops, but Nash had not been the one to hack into those, and their results were recorded in a high security location somewhere else in Brussels. He wasn't even supposed to know anything about them, Trowa reminded himself carefully...

Nash made his way back to the viewing area, where Vielle was carefully observing what he'd fished out from his mouth, now stuck in his fingernail. Any camera feed that might be of particular interest was projected onto a big screen on a metal table. Several small monitors crouched around it like chicks pressing around a mother hen. They showed the rooms that Nash had bugged a couple of days ago. The main screen showed the entrance, waiting for the house's owners to come home. A powerful computer controlled the feed they were receiving from the hidden spies, ready to help Nash track or focus on anything of particular interest.

There was the faintest sound from the speakers in the triple X room - that's how Pan, that Greek lech, had baptized the computer room after he'd taped Agent Mimelz and her girlfriend rolling around in their big bed. Nash quickly pulled up his chair and started clicking keys, making sure everything was still working.

"They here?" Vielle straightened from his slouch a bit. He apparently hadn't heard the sound of car doors slamming, distant and muffled by the speaker's white noise.

Nash continued to click: all audio and cameras were online, and the pickup unit was broadcasting correctly. He also made sure the kill-switch was ready to turn every single piece of surveillance equipment off, in case one of the agents did a sweep for bugs when they came home. It was why Nash was here, in the triple X room. The Syndicate needed him to set up the spies and use the software, but they also needed him to keep his eyes open and spot a sweep, and throw that kill-switch when needed. None of the others had the wetworks experience to do this. By the time they realized something was odd, a pro like Yuy could scan for monitoring signals, track them to their source, walk up to them and stick his gun in their ear while they were still scratching their asses and wondering what was going on. This expertise was going to keep Nash in the triple X room and on duty nearly constantly until they felt sure the targets weren't going to get suspicious. Nash tried to see it less as a boring imposition and more as a challenge; these two men were his most dangerous prey to date. He had to stay sharp. Trowa, who had put a lot of work into Nash's expertise, and into getting him deep into the Syndicate's confidence, stayed sharp as a matter of course.

"Well? Are they- oh." The front door opened, and Vielle leaned back, small eyes hard as he watched the two men come in.

Because there were so many little cameras, the computer had a good range with which to generate the picture. It could rotate the view a few degrees, and follow the targets' movements within a certain area. The image on the big main screen was divided in two, each view identical for now. Nash had his hands on keyboard and mouse, ready to tell the computer to do split tracking if the two men separated.

The two rats - Pre-vermin-ters as the Syndicate joke had it - came in, put down duffle bags, and took off their shoes by the door. The Asian one, Chang, slipped a rifle case from his shoulder and gestured at Yuy.

"Is the sound working?" Vielle whispered, as if they might actually be heard.

Nash shrugged a bit defensively, indicating the sound should be fine. Trowa, of course, wasn't surprised at the silence, but he couldn't let his familiarity with these two men show in Nash. He watched Heero pass his armament to Wufei, who went to lock it up in a secured cabinet.

"Fuck. Check out those two pricks. Not a scratch on them, looks like they've been at the beach," Vielle growled. He'd told Nash the toll for Mexico; the two agents had single-handedly destroyed an entire missile construction complex. Over ten men dead, by most estimates. Everybody else captured.

Nash grunted and glared in open hostility at the agents. Trowa watched; he noted the poses. The tension in shoulders and backs, the movements too crisp, too controlled. They were still in battle mode. Had probably been for the last four days. Trowa felt a sympathetic ache; he knew how tough that could be. After the first twenty four hours, the adrenaline just ate away at your nerves like acid but you couldn't let it go.

Yuy rifled through the mail they must have picked up on their way home, wandering towards the kitchen counter. Nash quickly clicked a few keys and the view on the screen split, following each agent. Trowa watched avidly from behind Nash's cold, hard eyes, almost wistful. He hadn't seen his friends since the war; they'd all been too busy to get together. Not even in Berlin; he’d been busy with surveillance and hadn’t managed to see them before Heero had been evacuated back to the Brussels’ clinic. They'd both grown. Heero had put on some muscle. Apart from the tension from their latest mission, they both looked good.

Moving around, taking off coats, flipping through a few bills -

Nash settled down, already a bit bored but ready for any important information they might let fall. But behind the mask, Trowa started to watch a bit more closely. There was something...off. Heero was...he was going through the mail but he wasn't putting all his formidable concentration into it. And he never did anything by half. The intensity with which the man made coffee could give Trowa a headache. Why was he looking at Wufei like that, out of the corner of his eye? It wasn't very visible, Vielle hadn't noticed, but Trowa had. He was beginning to wonder what-

Yuy tossed the mail on the kitchen counter. Chang had picked up his duffel and turned towards the stairs, but had glanced over at the sound of envelopes hitting the metal countertop.

...Wufei wasn't moving. He was just standing there, with that odd weighing expression on his face. Trowa's eyes went from one man to the other carefully. He was an observer. It was his nature, to watch at a distance. He didn't try to analyze or dissect what he observed in an active way. He just watched and matched up what he saw with past instances of the same behavior, letting instinct and intuition take the place of reasoning. In this instance he was having trouble making sense of what he saw even on that nearly sub-conscious level. What was up with those two...?

Nash was only beginning to react to the tension coming through the cameras. The split view started to mirror themselves again as Yuy walked towards his partner with slow, deliberate, almost predatory steps, eyes fixed on his face. A hand reached for the duffle bag's strap and slipped it off Chang's shoulder in one spare movement. Chang didn't twitch; he was a coil of dangerous stillness. His hand twisted ever so slightly, catching the strap of the bag as it fell by his wrist, to let it slip more slowly to the ground without ever breaking eye contact, in a move that was so minimalist it was almost a threat. Like two great cats watching each other, waiting to see what move the other would pull.

Even Vielle had noticed; he made a quizzical noise that caused his robust jowls to quiver a bit. "What, they about to fight over who gets to shower first? Nash, you sure the sound is- fuck me!"

On the monitor, the split views reflected the same scene twice. Yuy had grabbed his partner by the waist, slamming them together; fingers caught in black hair -...

Nash was silent - because, however much Trowa didn't like it, he was Nash, and Trowa was pretty stunned. And horrified. But he forced himself over the shock quickly. The mission. He had to stay in character, or he'd blow the mission. Heero, at least, would understand that much. God I'm sorry Heero I didn't know - no, concentrate. Even if he had known he'd have still made Nash do it, so now was not the time to get squeamish or lose his focus, or -

"Did-...did you know about this?" Vielle asked a bit weakly, glancing at Trowa.

Shit! Trowa quickly reconstructed Nash over his body and mind, twisting his face into older lines, putting that tell-tale glint in his eyes. Nash cracked his knuckles, staring thoughtfully at the screen.

"No, never had a clue. Guess our sources don't know everything. But we should have expected it after the Swiss bird, Mimelz, and her live-in lay. I mean, we knew these two guys were shacking up together," Nash sneered, eyes fixed on the screen.

Yuy's hands had slipped down into his partner's fatigues, kneading his ass, pressing Chang's groin against his own. The other man’s fingers were firmly anchored in tousled dark hair and he was nipping at the corner of a firm jaw.

"Here." Nash snickered, a crude noise as he clicked a few keys. The split image view disappeared and reappeared on another monitor, while the big screen now had a better and bigger picture of the two. "Something tells me we won't need split tracking for a while."

"Yeah." Vielle laughed, an obscene little gulp. "Hot damn."

On the screen, Chang roughly yanked Yuy's camo jacket and tank-top away, shoving him back a few steps in the process. Nash's eyes narrowed as he compared Zero One's chest to his own and felt a bit inadequate.

"Shit! What...they just gonna...right there?" Vielle did the laugh again, it ended in a breathless swallow as Chang pinned his partner against the kitchen countertop. His mouth was biting the crook of Yuy's neck. Nash - or maybe it was Trowa - felt a bit startled at the lack of emotions on Yuy's face. The camera feed wasn't in color, so maybe he was flushed, but he didn't show much in the way of joy at the man palming and rubbing his cock through his fatigues. Vielle, who was probably not looking at their faces, hadn't noticed.

Chang muttered something. Vielle shifted forward, but between the echoes from the audio and the fact Chang's mouth was still muffled by Yuy's throat, it hadn't been comprehensible. They broke apart - panting picked up by the mike, fuzzily - and turned towards the stairwell. Nash, caught a bit short, started clicking keys.

They're not even holding hands. That's...odd. That thought belonged to Trowa and he pushed it away, he couldn't afford a distraction. He concentrated - no, _Nash_ concentrated on his keys, following the pair.

He lost them in the stairwell, which like the corridor outside their rooms had no spies. One of the auxiliary monitors betrayed the two men as they burst into the smaller bedroom, and he transferred that image to the big screen. The kissing - well, technically, it was more like biting, mouthing, chewing on each other's skin - had started again. Chang had lost the military top he'd been wearing and whatever he had had underneath. Zero Five was slimmer than the other ex-pilot, but his muscle definition could have been used on an anatomy chart, Nash noted. Yuy moved to his side, fingers probing beneath the partially loosened fatigues. His mouth was close to Chang's ear. Nash was fiddling with the audio, trying to catch any whispers, while Trowa was willing to bet that the audio was just fine and they weren’t saying anything. For someone who was used to having Duo in bed, that felt entirely novel.

Yuy's other hand dipped down in the gap between the waistline and Chang's skin, while he swung the slightly smaller man against the wall four feet away from the door, across the room from the bed. Strong hips surged, slamming Chang's body against the plaster and pressing the Asian man's groin between Yuy's and those hard, kneading hands on his ass. That's gotta hurt, Nash thought with a wince, and then stared as Chang's head rolled back and a whispery groan of pleasure brushed the speakers. Yuy licked the neck that had tilted under his lips and surged forward again. Muscles that looked like they could plow their way right through that wall and into the study next door, tightened and thrust again, and Chang's ragged pants increased. He was writhing and rubbing right back. Vielle swallowed noisily. When Nash glanced at him, he was loosening that ugly green tie.

Yuy leaned back a scant inch or two, just enough to rip open the fatigues trapping his fingers. He followed them down to the ground, dropping to one knee. Chang stumbled a bit and managed to step out of the fatigues. He was staring down at Yuy's bowed head, face unreadable. A few strands of hair had been pawed from the tight ponytail, and fell about his face, not softening it one bit. It just made him look wild and dangerous. Yuy was fishing around the back pockets of his own fatigues, and he finally closed his fist over something. Then he leaned in, fastening his mouth - to Nash's surprise - on the juncture between a lean hip and the groin. The back of his head was to the cameras, but from the sudden way Chang flinched and fell back against the wall, Nash wasn't surprised to see the faint bite mark when Yuy moved away enough for a view. Once more, no protest from Chang. Neither did he make any encouraging noises, to indicate he was getting off on it... Yuy rose slowly, in a whole body surge like a rough caress that forced Chang against the wall. He'd not let his mouth trail near his partner's erection, and Wufei didn't even look surprised or disappointed by this, Trowa noted distractedly.

Yuy thrust a thigh between his partner's legs and pressed against his groin. Chang surged and rubbed against it, arms tight around hard shoulders; he let loose a little annoyed puff of air as Yuy removed his leg to skim out of his own pants and underwear. Nash found himself once more comparing their respective frames and being rather disappointed. Fuck, this guy didn't look like much in uniform, but he was built like a brick shithouse. Looked like you could open beer bottles between his ass cheeks. Yeah, last drink before he pulverized you...

"Turn around, boys," Vielle's breath of a whisper was audible in the silence only brushed with ragged panting. The big man was shifting in his seat and sweating in his shirt and polyester jacket.

Yuy was fiddling with something one handed. The other hand was working Chang's thigh, leaving visible marks, dark grey ghosts on the monitor. Chang was rubbing himself against his partner again, arching against the wall to get some leverage in a move that should have sent Yuy staggering back. Muscles rippled and the prick didn't budge an inch, Nash noted sourly. Chang's fingers were making their own marks, down a back like a wall, over Yuy's ass, grinding the two bodies together.

A tiny little noise of something plastic hitting the floor and Yuy's hand moved forward, sliding behind Chang's firm ass and disappeared, at least as far as the viewers were concerned.

"Wh-" Chang jerked, and his hands flew to Yuy's shoulders, as if to shove him away. Yuy surged forward in a body block, leg thrust between Chang's thighs, hip twisting to pin him to the wall, and his free hand shot up and covered the open mouth, cutting off the exclamation. Chang's head thumped against the wall.

Trowa half-expected Wufei to kill Heero at that point, but apparently this rough play was the norm. He kept remembering the way they sparred together during the war, the constant edge of competitiveness and provocation between the two. Yeah, how else would those two go about having sex- holy fuck, as Duo would say. Heero and Wufei are sleeping together! The reality was just beginning to seep in. Strangely enough, all that preceded had just stunned him without any real conclusions. But this sudden struggle was just so typical of those two, the air between them burning with an unspoken, passionate challenge...no contempt, no distance, no barriers, just this ferocious confrontation between equals...Heero...and Wufei...were...

The two were completely motionless. Nash - to Trowa's numb self-disgust - was fiddling with the computer's image enhancement, causing the view to sway a bit back and forth. The spies were all over and around the bed, so he could only get the shot from those in the wall opposite the two men, without much camera angle. The watchers got a small glimpse of Yuy's face; his entire attitude was challenging, one silent dare. Chang was glaring at him over the hand on his mouth, fists on Yuy's chest but not shoving him away. His eyes flickered over his partner's shoulder - towards the bed, Nash realized. He huffed in annoyance when Yuy didn't budge.

Finally the battle lines were drawn; Chang shifted his position, still crushed against the wall, and squirmed. Down onto Yuy's fingers, Nash gathered. He must have also bit Yuy's hand, hard, because the agent snatched it away from the mouth it had covered and rubbed the fingers with his thumb absently, before dropping them back to Chang's thigh.

Released, Chang’s mouth opened slightly, his head tilted back. His right leg slid up slowly, hooking around Heero's thigh, giving his partner better access as he slipped a hand between the wiry body and the wall.

Vielle was breathing heavily, and he was sweating so much Nash wondered if he was about to have a heart attack. The big man wiped his forehead and mouth with the rumpled tie he'd finally jerked all the way off. He’d slipped out of his jacket, draping the latter over his lap to Nash's utmost relief. Vielle caught the mercenary observing him and he gave Nash a conspiratorial grin.

"I didn't know you were into guys," Nash found himself saying, and barely managed to keep it neutral, banishing any hint of sneer. Vielle wasn't someone you could belittle with impunity.

"I'm not choosy," Vielle replied slowly and without any defensiveness. "Piece of ass like that can come my way any day. You?" Nash caught a quick glance at his own body and tensed like a wire.

"I don't care what I'm on top of," Nash answered coldly, stressing the word 'top' ever so slightly.

Vielle grunted absently, eyes back on the screen. Chang had hooked his leg over Yuy's hipbone; it gave Yuy a better angle. The thigh muscles and calf tightened, like a noose slowly pulling Yuy in, grinding them together. Chang's slight smile was feral. Nash thought they were going to end up more bruised by their post-mission playtime than by their trip to Mexico, then reminded himself that these guys were professional fighters. They probably knew how much force to apply to make it interesting but not damaging. And they probably didn't bruise easily either. No sir.

Chang's head fell sideways a bit. His eyes were shut and he was panting open mouthed. His body rubbed against Yuy's, a slow up and down movement. Zero One wasn't moving an inch; his head was turned slightly, he was watching his partner intently. Muscles in his right arm flexed as his fingers moved, dug deeper, twisted, stretched. Ripples flowed through Chang's body. He arched against the wall occasionally, breath strangling into a gasp. Not that often though, and Trowa made a note to have a talk with Heero about the prostate and how it was actually something that could be teased and pleasured, not just occasionally prodded. Then he reminded himself that he would never get past the words 'your technique could use some improvement -' before ending up in traction. Bad idea. He resolutely buried himself in Nash again, letting his guilt at what he'd done struggle to hide behind Nash's contempt for the scene before him.

Chang's eyes flew open. He turned his head slowly and caught Yuy's eyes. Yuy stopped all movement immediately and stared back.

Face unreadable, Chang shifted and straightened against the wall. The muscles in his right leg, as corded and defined as the rest, tightened slowly. Black eyes were still fixed on Yuy's in an echo of the earlier 'dare' stare. The watchers could only see the back of Yuy's tousled head and a sliver of his profile, but something in his stance seemed to indicate that he was picking up the gauntlet. He was shifting his weight, bracing.

Nash felt a bit gutted as Chang shifted, then slowly dragged his other leg up over those steely thigh muscles and hooked it around Yuy's waist. Zero One hadn't even flinched, or staggered or - Chang wasn't big, but he was all muscle, he must weigh considerably more than a butterfly. He was actually bracing himself against the wall, shoving a bit with his back as he levered himself - against Yuy! - and raised himself higher. Yuy didn't even have to lean back or bend at the knee to carry the weight, though muscles were leaping into sharper definition in his back and thighs. Did they build this motherfucker out of Gundanium?!

They stilled in this new position, Yuy and the wall bearing Chang's weight. Chang was staring at his partner in that odd, challenging way. But they still hadn't exchanged a word. Finally, Yuy moved. His right hand slipped away from Chang's ass - not the slightest flinch or expression on the latter's enigmatic face - and drifted lower. Nash supposed, from the short back and forth movements, that he was spreading the rest of whatever he was using for lube on his dick - wow, the guy was a gentleman after all - and readying it.

The mercenary could have sworn that there'd been no signal between the two, yet Chang suddenly dipped his head, eyes drifting shut in concentration as he lowered himself a bit. The movement slowed, his face tightened, probably starting to press down against- Nash found himself digging his nails into his sweating palms. He rubbed his hands against his jeans in disgust. Man, why did they have to watch this? These guys weren't going to discuss mission details now, were they? A glance towards Vielle, who'd slumped down in his chair a bit, eyes glued to the screen, indicated that the boss wasn't about to leave. And Nash wasn't going to run away like a frightened virgin either, not in front of Vielle. Besides, somebody had to keep an eye on the cameras, and Vielle didn't know how to do it. Fuck.

A small moaning whisper, and Chang flinched. He continued to lower himself, hands anchored over Yuy's shoulders, leaving welts visible in the black-and-white picture. Yuy's back and shoulders were heaving with his tight rapid breathing. Chang's face was tight and as controlled as his respiration, in and out through his nose, a slower counterpoint to Yuy's quicker pants. Leg muscles flexed; he stopped the slow downward movement. A shudder ran through Yuy's frame. The guy wasn't a machine after all, despite appearances to the contrary.

Black eyes opened again, the same challenging, enigmatic stare. His arms were around Yuy's shoulders; they tightened as he pulled himself up a bit. Only a portion of his back rested against the wall, hips canted forward to deepen the penetration. His leg muscles tensed and strained, and he started to move. Slowly. Nash felt his eyes bug out. Yuy wasn't moving at all. Not swaying under the pressure of that movement, and not pounding into it either. Just-...standing there, letting Chang fuck him. Well, fuck himself, really. Shoulders rigid, head high, staring right back at Chang, probably with the same look of teasing challenge. Chang smirked as he pulled himself up again.

Nash shifted uneasily, and he glared down at his knees, rather surprised to find himself getting a bit hard. He normally didn't let the activities of his targets affect him, and he'd seen some pretty juicy things in his time. Men, women, in any combination - it didn't matter. Nash himself had crude, simple tastes; as he'd said to Vielle, a piece of ass was a piece of ass. This really shouldn't be getting to him.

But it was. The open challenge between them, the power in those two bodies, their control. These things attracted and excited Nash more than any two-bit hooker ever could. It was why he liked wetworks, why he enjoyed violating his targets' privacy, watching their lives, getting control of them in a moment of intimacy and freedom. This - this show, raw sensuality and naked power-struggle, was - he shifted again. The worst part was, he didn't even know who to identify with. Yuy at first, since it was obvious who was about to get fucked as soon as Zero One had pinned his counterpart to the wall, plus even a god would be jealous of that build. But now it was obvious that Chang was, well, he was getting fucked but it was obvious Yuy was having to fight for even a shred of dominance. In the back of Nash's mind the thought hovered; that there was no dominance or submission here, that neither was trying to really control the other that way. The challenge was something different, an intimacy he couldn't see, a bond of understanding and strength he couldn't violate. His fingernails were biting into his palms again and he glared at the screen, offended and angry without really knowing why.

Chang licked his mouth, probably to catch the sweat tickling his upper lip, and flexed again, up and down, agonizingly slowly. His eyes still fixed on Yuy, taunting as much as his slow movements. Yuy's hands tightened on the thighs they'd grasped to steady the two during their coupling. Chang's arms released their grip on Yuy's shoulders and straightened languidly, as if he was stretching them, fingers splayed before tightening into fists, and fuck it all he was just using his legs and abs to move! He was barely leaning against the wall anymore either! Someone remind me not to face either of these fuckers in a straight out hand-to-hand, Nash grumbled internally. He didn't like to admit being outclassed, but he wasn't stupid either.

Up, down...Chang's smirk tightened, his eyes narrowed.

Finally the steel frame of Heero Yuy started to show some effects. The shuddering along his back and thighs grew, and he leaned in slowly towards the man riding him. He groaned softly, head lowered, neck stiff with effort and concentration. Chang was still writhing on him, up and down, tantalizing, not fast enough to spark the explosion that had to be building up in that wire-taut body. Yuy tilted his head. In the picture - Nash's fingers flew, twisting the view a bit - he was flushed, but his face was still remarkably set and focused in the slice of profile the watchers could catch. He turned his head, placed his closed lips on his partner’s.

The rhythm faltered. It was slight - it had been so slow it was barely noticeable. Chang froze for a second, mouth to closed mouth, then he jerked his head away, a little twitch. He blinked and turned back almost immediately; lips slightly open...searching for-...but Yuy was licking the side of his neck, before letting his head fall forward against Chang's shoulder. The slow pulse of movement started again. Nash licked his lips, wondering how long they were going to keep this up.

And Trowa watched. He'd been curled up in a protective ball, trying not to let his own feelings interfere with his mask and without actually listening to what he had to make the bastard Nash think about. But Trowa couldn't help notice the way Wufei's mouth twisted briefly. Heero was nuzzling his ear, but Wufei didn't seem to notice, he looked...hurt? Disappointed? As if he'd expected more from that kiss, just for a moment. The expression was fleeting and vanished almost immediately, as if it had never been, but Trowa was a proficient watcher and noted it automatically, though he wasn't sure what it meant. Then the sphinx-like gaze returned as Heero leaned back to stare at Wufei again, and Trowa remembered his own mask.

Chang's movements became suddenly more aggressive, legs tightening further, thrusting up and down on Yuy's cock. Yuy shook, gasped. And broke. His hands snatched at Chang's ass and he started to move, breaking the slow torturous rhythm with hard, rapid thrusts. Chang's breathing hitched, he arched against the wall, then moved his hips forward to deepen the penetration. Yuy thrust into the body, hard. Then he stilled, gasping for breath, pressing his partner to the wall.

"Didn't last long." Vielle tried to sound derisive instead of breathless. Nash glanced automatically at the timer on the upper right side of the screen, milliseconds flickering by, uncaring, and had to agree. The partners hadn't been home more than twenty five minutes.

Yuy was panting against his partner's shoulder. Chang still had that calm, self-possessed look on his face, and if he'd actually come during that, Nash decided, then he wasn't human. A minute passed, Yuy still holding them both up with overbearing ease, though he was trembling a bit now. Chang finally released the deathgrip of his legs around Yuy's waist, and eased to the ground. Without a question or even a glance at his partner, Yuy slowly sank to one knee. Chang's hands rested on his shoulders and he glanced down briefly. The strong, gripping finger were still on his ass, probably leaving marks. Yuy nuzzled the erection before him. He was still turned away from the cameras, despite Vielle's disappointed whine; the watchers could only see the tousled hair move, up and down, the tip of Chang's erection visible as he concentrated further down. Chang breathed out through his nose, loudly. Yuy leaned back and slightly sideways, catching the tip of the arousal - dark grey in the colorless monitor - between full lips. He slowly leaned forward, inching down over it in an imitation of Chang's previous, slow movement.

Chang's head fell back against the wall. Eyes open wide. Staring - staring right at the viewing cameras, giving Nash a nasty jolt before he realized the eyes were dazed with pleasure.

Nash zoomed out a bit. Yuy stayed on one knee, half crouched as if unable to let himself be fully vulnerable and relaxed even in these circumstances. Chang continued to stare straight ahead, not looking down, his hands fisted against the wall behind him. He was panting, mouth slightly open, eyes slowly closing.

Vielle made an appreciate noise. Nash tried to dig up some of the coarse jokes he was known for from his repertoire. It wasn't easy; Trowa's mask had cracked, and besides, he still wasn't entirely sure of Vielle's proclivities, and that restrained him. Vielle was not someone you wanted to insult even accidentally. The man could keep Nash from going further into the Syndicate, where Trowa wanted to be. But this silence was unlike Nash; he would not want Vielle to think he was getting off on this. Nash didn't mind taking a man if there was nothing else available, but he didn't like the idea of letting anyone know what turned him on. Besides, he preferred to humiliate his targets, rather than see them as objects of desire. He desperately cast around for something to say.

"Nice. How much do you think it'd cost to get him to go down on me like that?" he finally managed. A bit weak, but then Vielle wasn't really listening. It'd been easier when he was watching the two girls the other day with Pan and Corazon. Now that had been funny, any tension defused by the coarse heckling and encouragements.

Yuy quickened the movement. Chang stiffened against the wall and jerked his head to one side, in half profile on the picture. Nash was frozen on the keys and didn't even react. The wiry body shuddered, the fists dug into the wall, then jerked and thumped back against it. Black eyes fluttered shut, the young face softened, vulnerable for a few breath-taking moments. His deep, even breathing partly covered the sound of Yuy swallowing between his legs.

Chang started to slip down along the wall but he stopped himself from sitting down with a grimace and moved onto his knees instead. Yuy, wiping his mouth, leaned back, let him crawl past. Chang grabbed their clothes on the floor. Trowa, the careful observer, noted a slight hesitation, minute, maybe even subconscious. It made Wufei's choice - of laying his butt on his own fatigues, to catch any stains, but using Heero's as a pillow - maybe more significant than it was. Trowa focused on Wufei burying down into the cloth, a hand clenching and kneading Heero's fatigues almost absently...maybe not a coincidence after all.

Heero had sat down, back against the wall, and was leaning against it, eyes closed. Trowa didn't think he'd noticed Wufei's slight hesitation and choice. Heero was very focused on what he did and anything that could threaten him, not small details.

“The bed-” the sudden words made both watchers jump, “-is seven feet away, Yuy.”

Trowa noticed the slightest smirk on Heero's face. He looked pretty pleased with himself. You had to know him very well to tell though.

“I'm almost afraid to ask.” Wufei's voice hadn't changed since the war. The slight raggedness of passion didn't cover the delightful contrast of the scholar's precision and the warrior's roughness that had always fascinated Trowa. “What did you use?”

One of Heero's eyes opened a slit, then he reached towards the floor. He tossed what he picked up gently onto the strong abs laid out before him. Wufei started and caught the tiny plastic tube before it tumbled to the ground.

“The nice stewardess who handed out earphones, blankets, water and complimentary lip balm did not intend you to use the latter in this fashion.”

Heero just smirked again. Trowa, who knew Heero was not the kind to worry about lip balm, realized he must have squirreled it away with the express intent of-

"What? What did he say?" Vielle sounded puzzled.

Trowa stiffened. He'd forgotten himself! He'd understood what Wufei had said - despite a couple of Japanese words that had slipped into the languid sentences. Trowa - and Nash - had picked up Japanese and a smattering of Chinese in his days, but it had been Trowa's familiarity with the pilots and their way of talking more than his ability at languages that had helped him understand Wufei. Nash should be as perplexed as Vielle. He'd been too intent on watching his friends, trying to understand - he'd have to watch that. His mission, and his life, were at stake.

"Dunno. Sounded like Japanese, but I didn't catch it. They're Asian, probably some lingo from the East." He carefully brought Nash back, drawing him over his mind like a man donning a mask.

"They're colony crud," Vielle countered, standing up. "Some of that was in English, but I didn't catch it all. Shit, if they're gonna talk like that, it'll make things difficult."

"Xian's Chinese. He's Corazon's second. We should get him to review the records of anything that looks important," Nash said, dragging yet another man into Heero and Wufei's private lives, and Trowa let him. Vielle was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Probably judging how excited he was or something. Vielle had his jacket still hanging in front of his groin. But Trowa couldn't take the chance that that momentary slip-up had shown the cunning brute anything that might make him think twice about Nash.

"Yeah. Good idea. We'll call him later. Watch the screens, willya? I've got something to do." With a loathsome, conspiratorial smirk Vielle walked out, heading towards the building's washrooms, it was to be supposed. Nash - and Trowa even more so - was just thankful the fucker hadn't jerked off during the performance. Now that would have been uncomfortable. Nash was only comfortable with intimacy when he was spying on it unseen.

The door closed. Nash crossed his arms over his chest, and Trowa took a deep, long breath, discreetly. He schooled his features into blankness which was unusual for Nash, but was better than showing what Trowa really felt.

He looked at the screen again. Wufei and Heero were close to each other, but not touching or saying anything. Trowa started to fiddle with the cameras, trying to get a better look at their faces, and even bringing up the split screen view again. He was still centering the cameras when Wufei stood up in one smooth, graceful movement. He didn't say anything. Trowa thought he caught the barest glance down at Heero, who was still sitting against the wall, legs loosely clasped, face perfectly unreadable, eyes closed.

Wufei stepped away without a word. Heero’s eyes - black on the monitor but Trowa knew them to be a rich, startling blue - flew open, following Wufei's progress to the door.

Trowa looked into those eyes and the vague feeling of concern he'd had since Wufei and Heero had climbed the stairs without touching each other suddenly crystallized.

It was only a flicker. And the spies could record that and chisel it into the hard-drive's electrons for posterity, it didn't matter one bit because no-one, maybe not even Wufei, would be able to spot and read that expression in those deep blue eyes. It needed a dispassionate observer, and someone who knew Heero very well. Wufei was a good observer - Une sang his praises, he was noted for being the detective of the team - but Trowa knew him. Wufei was very good at observing and judging situations only if he wasn't emotionally involved in them. At the slightest hint of that passion he was capable of, his eyes went blind and he filtered everything he saw through his own interpretations, emotions tamed and warped by his intellect as if they were dangerous things to be rigorously controlled... Trowa had been there when Treize had beaten the young man. He knew how deadly Wufei's emotions could be, trapping even their owner in a glass maze where nothing was quite what it seemed.

Trowa was struck by a sudden realization: he had also been the one watching Heero after the latter had self-destructed. Both times, for each of these men, he'd been there. It was the distantly compassionate mercenary who had picked up the pieces after both these pilots had had their reason for living put into question. He'd seen both without their masks, and he wondered if they'd ever seen each other so intimately as he, a stranger to their relationship, had.

He thought not.

He might be the only one who could understand that brief, naked look in Heero's eyes, because he'd seen it before.

It was a faint echo of what Trowa had seen after New Edwards, when Heero had been contemplating what he'd done, the fact that he'd survived and that he still needed redemption.

He's hit a limit. Trowa didn't try to analyze or think or ponder. He just let that look sink into his memory, triggering the associated feelings. Heero has found himself backed up against something he doesn't know how to cope with, a failing he can't undo. And...he's worried. Not about himself - he probably doesn't understand the concept. He's concerned about Wufei. The way he'd followed Wufei to the door with his eyes, trying to say something he couldn't begin to put into words...Trowa had seen that look before too, and it had been directed at him, Trowa. When the young mercenary had told Heero -calmly, for Trowa had nothing to get excited about at the time - that he and Heavyarms were going to have their last performance that night, and that Heero had better get clear while he could.

Why was Heero worried? Okay, granted, that mindjob of a screw had not been the most normal thing Trowa had ever witnessed. But everything indicated this was routine for them and had been going on for - shit, those looks on Peacemillion, and the way they- hell, of course. This had been going on for a long while, if Trowa's eyes did not deceive him. If he'd had any doubt, the fact that Wufei could easily walk after that rough fuck rather illustrated he was used to this treatment. Trowa's first time, pretty recently, had been gentle and slow, and he'd still moved a bit funny afterwards, much to Duo's considerable amusement.

No, he didn't think Heero was worried about the way they were having sex, or anything obvious to Trowa. And he doubted Heero had the ability to put his concerns into words.

The shower noises in the background stopped. Wufei came back into the room toweling his hair, and Trowa watched with a sinking feeling as every trace of what he'd observed disappeared from Heero's eyes, stance, and probably his conscious mind as well. He could almost see Heero just...change, become the soldier who was assuming his partner was all right because Wufei was obviously just fine, moving around the room, getting out clothes...Trowa had seen that before, too, when Heero had not been able to find the words to dissuade Trowa from suicide. No words; nothing he could do; not related to his mission anyway; go on, good luck, take as many as you can with you. It was a sideways movement of the mind that only Heero was capable of. It was what gave him his magnificent focus, his powerful concentration, his ability to blow himself up without the slightest hesitation or trace of regret. In contrast, Trowa had to fade, hide behind Nash. Wufei fled and twisted away from his own emotions, but they still marked every aspect of his behavior. Only Heero could just not feel, on command.

“What do you want to eat tonight?” Wufei's voice brought Trowa's attention back to the present in black and white.

“You choose.”

It had the sound of a ritual. A comfortable rut. A routine to hide in. Trowa watched Wufei move around, trying to pinpoint what had worried Heero, but he couldn't see it. Wufei seemed fine and matter-of-fact, getting dressed, picking up clothes, chasing Heero out to go take his own shower, shouting at him to pick up the duffel bags downstairs afterwards, maybe learn a little patience and forbearance in the accomplishment of menial tasks while he was at it. Trowa smiled slightly at the snort from the hallway. That was something else he remembered from the war; Duo dared to tease the hardened killer, but Wufei was the only one who could ever get a rise out of him.

Trowa sighed, silently and without movement, still deep in hiding. What was up with those two...was nothing he could do anything about. Because he was deep under cover, on a mission, and that took first priority. And because Trowa knew first-hand how difficult dealing with your own emotions could be; a stranger had no chance of affecting this complex relationship except by blindly barging in and taking the chance of doing more harm than good.

And of course, if he tried to talk to his friends about this, he'd first have to admit to having watched this scene. He almost laughed out loud at how utterly suicidal that would be. Heero might kill him, or not, it was hard to judge how he’d take it, but Wufei would do something to him that would make even Nash's notorious threats pale in comparison.

He heard Vielle's heavy steps in the hallway, and reluctantly returned to Nash, with a shudder of revulsion that showed Trowa how deeply he'd been caught off-balance by all this. He'd think about all this later. Now he had to make sure he didn't slip up and die before he had the opportunity to make some amends to his friends.

Vielle opened the door. Nash nodded at him, eyes still fixed on the screen. "Nothing new," he informed the other as the big man sat down again. Nash had thought up a few good ones, some crude, barbed jokes that would take the scene they'd witnessed and use it to cut his quarry into little chunks, diminishing these men. Nash had watched them lose their control, he knew something about them that they would want to hide; he had power over them, and he intended to use it. He'd wait for just the right moment. Nash knew his delivery was superb. He'd have Vielle laughing and in awe of his cruelty, one fellow sadist to another.

Nash was, after all, and by his own defiant admission, a bastard.

Trowa, planning the next steps of his mission, wasn't too happy about himself right now either.

 

 

Pinned against the wall by his lover - who'd grown up considerably in the year since the war and could now pin him pretty easily - Trowa didn't say anything when he thought he saw a figure move away in the hallway outside. It could be only one person: the Syndicate thugs couldn't move that silently, while the Preventers would hail them from outside the door. And Heero would stride in, grab them by the scruff of the neck and haul them both out of there, telling them to grab a gun and start shooting.

Trowa watched the flicker of a shadow as it disappeared towards the stairwell. After observing Wufei during the war, he thought he could read him pretty well. He could have sworn that the L5 Preventer had nothing but scorn for Nash, and possibly for Trowa, who'd betrayed him, as well. The Wufei he remembered wasn't so good at hiding his feelings. Must have picked it up from Heero...Well, if he was still the proud, reclusive person he was, he had been hurt, even if he hadn't shown it, or taken this opportunity to let it be known. Trowa was hardly in a position to complain about Wufei's inadvertent eavesdropping on him and Quatre.

His lover stirred in his arms. Trowa didn't want to let go. When he let go, he'd have to be that bastard Nash again. He...didn't want to ever let go.

Quatre sighed, and Trowa's arms dropped of their own accord.

"I have to-"

His words were interrupted by the sound of several feet in the stairwell. Quatre motioned him to stay put and ghosted towards the door.

"Who's there?"

Trowa watched the way Quatre held the HK lightly, no tension in his arm to hamper a swift aim-and-fire. Blue eyes calm as he waited for an answer to his hail. Trowa's memories were precious to him now; he curled up with them at night, putting Nash away for a few minutes. These memories of the precious lives he watched; they kept him whole, helped to define him, remind him who he was and who he was fighting for...

"Preventer," a voice rapped from near the stairwell. "Identify yourself."

Quatre mouthed 'I love you', then grabbed the canon of his HK in his left hand and put it slowly on the floor in view of the man near the stairwell.

"My name is Quatre Winner. I'm coming out. I'm unarmed." He took a step out the door, hands in the air.

"Oh, right," the Preventer said slowly. "The Old Fox did tell me to look out for the blond bit downstairs."

Silence.

"Ah, I get it, you were the hostage. Though the Fox said you were actually a spook."

Silence.

"Need an escort out of here?"

"...The blond bit, huh?"

"What?"

"Yes, I need an escort please. I have to talk to Une or Grecko."

"You and half of Brussels," the man muttered. "Well, pick up your weapon, and you can help me bring these two down." There was the sound of a shove and the clink of manacles, and somebody swore. Captives, apparently.

"Anyone else around?" Trowa heard the man ask.

"No, Agent Chang and Yuy cleared this floor. There's no-one here."

"Huh, trust that pair. Surprised they didn't take the whole gang down while they were at it." The man sounded good-humored about it. "Well, come on, and watch out for-" The rest was lost in the stairwell.

Trowa waited, listening to the fading steps. His exit was planned. He'd go out a window, crawl to the fire escape, go down the building, find the group of three mercenaries he'd left to defend one of the hangars near the garage, tell them the gig was up and escape with them by that little dip that led to the canal between buildings.

His mind wandered as he counted down the seconds, reluctant to resume his Nash personality just yet. He hoped Quatre could get the information to Wufei before the Preventers isolated the system. Wufei and Heero had enough problems with their private lives as it were, he suspected. And maybe Wufei might actually check the records, just to see what needed to be deleted. Maybe he'd catch that look in Heero's eyes and confront the man and break the silence, and when did you become such an optimist, Nanashi...

It would be interference anyway, he told himself with an inward shrug. A new, fairly concerned Trowa, who believed that emotions, his own and other peoples', were worth fighting for and protecting, was immediately disgusted by that callous dismissal. That part of him insinuated that outside intervention might be just what the doctor ordered. He didn't trust himself to say and do anything, though.

So he'd leave that to Quatre. Those were their respective natures. Trowa would rather leave alone than do harm; Quatre would rather try than do nothing.

For now he had to forget about all that. Forget his friends and his lovers. Forget the look in Heero's eyes as he watched the only man he'd ever let close to him walk out of the room in a silence he didn't know how to break. Forget the scorn on Wufei's face as Nash dropped his bombshell about the cameras. Forget the mess he might have made of their relationship. Forget the worry in Quatre's eyes, the way his lover had held him fiercely as if he never wanted to let go; the way Quatre had let go, finally. Forget...who he was and concentrate on making sure Nash continued to hide him a little while longer.

Just for a few more weeks. He needed to nudge, prod and cajole Nash a bit further, into a few more of the Syndicate's inner circles. Leads and plots were near fruition, he just had to stick it out a while longer. With the abnegation that was once second-nature to Nanashi, he buried himself once more into the role.

A few more weeks and he'd be able to get rid of Nash. Good riddance. He'd bury Nash with considerable pleasure. The deepest grave he could find, weigh it shut with a massive tombstone.

_R.I.P._

_Bastard._


	29. Partners, Part I

"Don't chase a dog into a blind ally"  
\--- Chinese saying

 

'Smile!' the tee-shirt proclaimed.

The back added, 'It'll make them nervous', but the fact that Heero was wearing it was already irony enough for Wufei.

It was a gift from Maxwell. Of course. He'd brought them both tees a few months back as a thank-you present for his stay on their couch. Wufei had expected the tee-shirt to be used as an oil rag in the tool shop shortly after Duo's departure, but instead it had remained forgotten and rumpled at the bottom of the stack of Heero's clothes, until Wufei had decided that his partner's usual green or black tank-tops were too military and the clothes he'd bought for the L3 mission not casual enough. It had been badly wrinkled when Heero finally remembered that he owned the thing and found it in the pile; Wufei had dragged his partner away from the ironing board with considerable difficulty. Now it fell, loose and slightly mussed, hiding that splendid chest. With a pair of jeans and a blank expression, wandering around aimlessly on the main floor of the mall, hands in pockets and earphones in his ear, Heero looked so much like a teenager that Wufei had actually done a double-take when he had first spotted him.

//Target?// The voice was low but clear in Wufei's ear, the crisp, military lingo at odds with the picture his partner made.

"Negative. See you though," Wufei answered, nearly sub-vocally, without moving his lips too much.

He saw Heero's eyes twitch, left and right, then his partner stopped his slow pacing and turned, as if trying to decide where to go. The eyes hunted for him again.

"Up," Wufei murmured. The piped music and background noise of the mall covered his nearly silent words, but he knew that the throat mike, carefully disguised as a tiny music player clipped to his collar, was picking up both the words and the vibrations in his throat and relaying them clearly to his partner's earphones.

Blue eyes idly followed a path of fantastic, floating billboards hovering in the great open space that led to the roof of the three-story mall. They flickered discreetly over the people shopping on the second level and passed over him with no overt signs of recognition, but Heero indicated he'd spotted him by turning back to his ambling.

//North.// Heero decided. Wufei 'hm'-ed an acknowledgment and headed towards the south end of the mall, in the opposite direction, managing not to say 'be careful' as he lost sight of his partner again.

He had that under control. Most of the time. It wasn't always easy.

Most of the time, he was still entirely focused on the mission, living on that edge of adrenaline and fierce pride in their accomplishments that made everything else seem trivial.

Concentrated, single-minded, in mission-mode...then he'd have a flash. Today, it was the crime-scene photos Une had shown them to impress upon them the danger their quarry represented. He'd been detached as he examined them; he'd seen worse, he'd _done_ worse. But occasionally the picture would burn in his mind, brighter than even duty, for just a second. Except in that version, it was Heero's body lying huddled against the sidewalk with his throat slit, blood pooling in the gutter and trickling down a drain. It was stupid; what were the chances of the target even catching Heero, much less overpowering him and doing that to him?

The image clung to him in spite of all reason, like a stain he couldn't remove. He ignored it. Not much else he could do. If he actually told Heero Yuy, ex-Gundam pilot and all-around excellent agent, to 'be careful', all he'd achieve would be to insult him. That's certainly how Wufei would have felt in his place.

His hair fell forward as he lowered his head, trying to slouch instead of walking with his usual straight-backed gait. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a shop-window and almost did a double-take again, a good sign that his disguise was working. His own tee-shirt hung loosely from his shoulders; Maxwell always picked them too big. It had a logo on it, a stylized black bat in a yellow oval with JLA written on the back. Duo had told him it was a historical reference from a pre-colony book, and 'just perfect for him', presumably as a scholar of history and literature. Wufei hadn't recognized the reference, and he had the sneaking suspicion that he was being subtly mocked, but he couldn't put his finger on it, so he had also consigned the tee to the bottom of his dresser with an indifferent shrug. He was glad now that he'd not thrown it away. Despite its garish yellow oval, it stood out a good deal less in the mall than his usual Chinese tunics would. His hair was loose, and he'd forced a stud back into his pierced ear, with a bit of pain and blood as he'd let it close again after their L3 mission. Personally, he thought he looked weird, but he did have to admit that the ensemble blended in with the youths around him, finished off as it was by a pair of Heero's jeans - baggier on him than his own - and a slow saunter he'd been practicing for the last hour. What was more out of place was to see a teen on his own in a mall, as they appeared to be pack animals in this environment, but the location was huge and the partners had had to break up to cover it if they wanted to have a chance at finding Hunter.

The ear-piece crackled faintly as he approached the south end of the mall. Its range wasn't too good inside the building. They'd have to watch that. In theory they could both single-handedly deal with their target. Then again, the men featured in the bloody crime-scene photographs had thought the same. Wufei was going to err on the side of caution.

//Target?// As usual, his partner was not patient. Oh, he wouldn't do anything stupid or rash that would endanger the mission; he'd have the endurance of rocks even if they had to visit every mall in Brussels and then the rest of Europe. But he was still impatient. The old Heero Yuy would have bottled it up and merely scowled, but this Heero had a partner to complain to - this was what the frequent repetition of that word amounted to for the soldier - and complain he did. Wufei bore it stoically.

"Nega-" he forced himself to continue walking at the same ambling pace. He let his gaze trail over the different counters in the food court before darting towards one of the tables again. He turned towards a place that sold what looked like pebbly mud in folded cardboard - 'Terrific Tacos!' the sign proclaimed - as if he were interested in a meal, though he couldn't imagine himself ever getting that desperate.

"Acquired," he mumbled.

//Location?//

"In front of a public health hazard. Food court," he amended quickly. They'd been working extremely hard these last two weeks. Under the onslaught, Heero's embryonic sense of humor had gone to ground, leaving only the implacable and very literal soldier in its place.

Trowa's mission had dealt the Syndicate a serious blow, and it was writhing in its agony, thrashing and killing indiscriminately. An ESUN board member and his family had been killed in a bomb blast in Lausanne. Undercover agents had been found with their throats slit in dark alleys. A few of the partners' informants had disappeared, probably permanently. Shoot-outs and murders were staining the genteel veneer of L3's colonies, and the secret war on Earth had erupted in starts and spurts into front-line news, though few people knew about the origin of this crime wave.

On the other hand, Heero and Wufei and the other Preventers had performed a thorough and satisfying roundup of the moles and double-agents that the careful sting operation had uncovered. Twenty nine men and women so far, in all kinds of positions. Secretaries, janitors, security guards, middle managers, data coordinators, a couple of directors of ESUN offices...Anthea's department had been hit hard, losing four members, and even one of the special field agents Wufei knew by sight had been arrested two days ago. People in Ops were going around looking shell-shocked, trying not to stare at the empty desks. Wufei, who hadn't really known most of the people arrested, and whose life had been endangered by the small, seemingly innocuous pieces of information they'd sold to the Syndicate over the last year, felt a good deal more pleased with the situation.

While Une was cleaning house, and since they were finally free of spies, the partners had gone after the big fish based on their previous work and the data captured from Trowa's operation. Wufei, looking at the cardboa- that is, tacos behind the glass, noted the dark circles under his eyes in his faint reflection. They were hardly sleeping these days, bringing down criminal after criminal. Wufei, a born pessimist, was sure that the Syndicate would survive. It would mutate again and move deeper underground, become less ambitious, stick to L3 and its European strongholds. It would live, but it would be severely diminished. The risks that Trowa had taken and the ceaseless efforts of the Preventers had drawn its fangs. One of which he kept a careful eye on as he moved away from the taco stand.

//On my way. Will stay downstairs and be ready to take the tail.//

"'Kay."

Heero didn't tell him to be careful, of course. He knew Wufei wouldn't let his guard down for anybody. Especially not Isabel Eugenie Farthings-Hunter.

She was sitting primly at the plastic table, drinking something in a white cardboard cup. Dressed in jeans, a loose blouse and cream-colored jacket, she still managed to look almost regal; mature and poised despite her young age of twenty-four. Three young men were looking at her covertly from another table, eyeing her appreciatively and then talking quietly amongst themselves. They looked to be older university students, attracted to the obvious air of intelligence and sophistication Hunter exuded, as well as her somewhat-good looks.

Get an eyeful, kids, Wufei thought darkly, his own eyes narrowing as he watched the scene from the corner in which he'd stashed himself. She's got more murders to her account than you've had birthdays. Cumulatively.

At least their sources had been right. She was here to accept a contract and obtain information about something, according to Une's spy network; Hunter would be meeting several people throughout the morning in different areas of the mall, at different stages of negotiations. Not that it mattered. The men she was meeting were small fry. It was Hunter that Wufei wanted, badly. Unfortunately she was undoubtedly armed, and previous history indicated that she had a blithe disregard for bystanders. They could not arrest her in here. Heero and Wufei were slouching around in these childish outfits so that they could follow her discreetly once she left the mall. They'd arrest her outside, where a shoot-out wouldn't end in a bloodbath.

Hunter finished her drink and rose gracefully, pushing back medium-length brown hair, slightly bobbed. She disposed of her cup in the trash with economical movements that probably looked elegant to the students and lethal to Wufei. He eyed her jacket over the loose blouse. What could she be packing? She went for small caliber, discreet. She also carried a halotech ceramic knife when she needed to pass metal-detectors. She knew how to use that blade to best effect, as she'd proven by slitting Agent Ganzi's throat with barely a struggle. When necessary, she also used it to bring back proof of her contracts' terminations. Despite all he knew about her, even Wufei was having a hard time reconciling the elegant young woman before him and those very ugly crime-scene photos.

He remembered Une's warning. His commander seemed very familiar with the real creature hidden behind that image of gentility and breeding. “I know I said no more undercover missions for you two, but this is a special case. I don't want any more accidents like Ganzi. Hunter requires my best. If need be...if need be, do not hesitate to use terminal force.”

It was rare for Une to require that these days. But that small hesitation had also been unlike her, come to think of it; once she decided what was needed, she normally showed no hesitation nor remorse. She'd been staring at a crime-scene photo, Ganzi's body, side by side with an ID shot of Hunter. Maybe even Une had had a hard time connecting the two.

"Moving. Heading north."

//Hn.//

He let her leave, waiting a few seconds to follow that light brown hair and cream-colored jacket. He quickly ran through her profile one more time, like a hunter checking his rifle yet again before following the big game into the underbrush.

Hunter was Romefeller, another child-soldier in her days. That explained her impressive body count despite her tender age. Ancient lineage, exquisite education. Even went to the same finishing school as Dorothy Catalonia, a bit of trivia which said pretty much all there was to say about her. Wufei made a mental note to have that hotbed of female maniacs shut down once he'd finished with this particular alumnus. Fanatical about Romefeller's cause, she'd worked as a spy for her family, but she'd gone a step further than Dorothy and taken up arms as well. Not as a soldier though; she never stood on a battle field in a mobile suit. Like Dorothy, she worked in the dark using misdirection and poisonous words, corrupting young minds her own age.

And sometimes the poison she used was far more literal. First dead body at fourteen. And not the last by far.

Wufei followed twenty feet behind Hunter at a slower pace, letting the distance between them grow. She was good, Une had stressed that. He wasn't going to take any chances of being spotted.

Their sources said she has already been working for the Syndicate before the end of the war. In her job - her mission, as she probably saw it- of insuring Romefeller's supremacy by whatever bloody means necessary, she'd often had to use underworld resources when she couldn't compromise her own. With hardened practicality, she'd carried out a few 'jobs' for the Syndicate in exchange for their help with her own assassinations. As long as the criminals she dealt with didn't touch Romefeller, she didn't care what they did.

She was walking faster. He either had to match her speed or lose her. Wufei turned blindly towards a shop window.

"Moving. Losing her. Second floor, section eight. Acquire."

//Hai.//

He watched her disappear into the crowd from the corner of his eye. Had she glanced over her shoulder briefly? Hopefully not.

How had she taken the end of the war? When all her murders, compromises, lies and sins had proven to be in vain? Une had kept an eye on her, and on many of OZ and Romefeller's old soldiers. According to the Lady's sources, Hunter had started working for the Syndicate full time after the war. How had she justified this to herself? He would probably find out tomorrow in an interrogation room. He couldn't wait to charge her; five police officers, good men and women, had died when they went to her hide-out to arrest 'a young girl'. Ganzi was the third Preventer agent to die trying to bring her in. Wufei didn't know the other two, personally, they'd been posted in the colonies. But Ganzi had worked three cubicles down from Sam's office, an efficient agent if a bit slow, and always ready with a smile. She'd killed him four days ago in Brussels, when he had been following her tracks and she happened to double back. No-one knew why she'd come back to Brussels; her odds of staying hidden in a colony were much better. This was something else she'd be able to tell them when they had her in their grasp.

Wufei realized that for the past two minutes - while he was desperately waiting for Heero to tell him he'd picked up the tail - he'd been staring at women's underwear in a shop window. He turned away hastily, glancing around. Hunter was long gone but if one of her unknown informants was around and had spotted the strange - and, incidentally, quite embarrassing - behavior, he might warn her. Hopefully anybody watching would assume he was looking for something for his girlfriend-

//Do you have anything for me?//

The unfortunate mental association of Heero's words and the thought they'd interrupted made Wufei walk straight into a decorative pillar.

"What?" he croaked, grappling for composure and valiantly ignoring the two teenage girls tittering at him from the entrance to a music shop.

//Did you see which way she's heading? I'm circling, but I don't see -//

" ...Yuy?"

//Acquired.//

"Where?"

//Ground floor, escalator nine. Heading east.//

They'd both hastily memorized the floor plans of the mall yesterday, when one of their stoolies in the contracting business had sold them her rendezvous point. The agents placed discreetly around the shopping center - the few they could spare from their current overworked forces - had missed her coming in. The partners had been staking out the mall looking for her for the last hour. Wufei tried to figure where she was going, according to the floor plan. East didn't have many shops, but it had an exit, next to the big indoor swimming pool that occupied one side of the mall. Maybe she was leaving. They had agents waiting on that side. Heero could follow her and drive her into their noose. Wufei hesitated, wanting to go east to help his partner, but knowing his help probably wasn't required. If she changed her mind and went off in another direction, Wufei had to be ready to pick up the tail again if Heero had to let it drop.

"Heading towards south-east exit in case she dodges that way," he muttered reluctantly.

//Hn.//

He made his way through crowds of teenagers indulging in the youthful sport of mall crawling. It was a school holiday, unfortunately, so there were many potential victims around. They were his age, he sometimes had to remind himself. And a lot of them had known war. Not as intimately as he had, but he spotted a couple of prosthetic limbs beneath jeans and a ragged 'War Sux' tee-shirt, scars and slightly haunted eyes beneath too much make-up. A few of the older kids sported the rigid stance of cadets from one or the other army. How could they go about having a normal life, wasting time and laughing at nothing much, and pretending, not very successfully, to be adults, when they'd seen so much? Or were they faking it as much as he was...?

//Fuck-//

Wufei froze.

//She made me! Running towards the swimming pool!//

The pool?! Wufei swore and started running, ignoring the startled stares as he broke cover. The big pool, sauna, gym, and luxury spa went from one end of the east side of the mall to the other. It had several exits out into the parking lots around it too, one near a subway station. If they lost Hunter in there-

Through his earpiece, he heard shouting, then Heero's voice ordering someone to get out of the way.

Wufei hesitated for a split second. Which way should he go? There was a second floor entrance to the gym, should he take that? Or-

Then his earpiece erupted with static, horrible squeals of - no, it was hysterical screams!

"Yuy?! What the fuck are you doing?!"

//She went into the women's dressing room for the pool.// His partner's voice was still remarkably cool and uncaring, despite being almost covered by angry and frightened female shouts. //In pursuit.//

Wufei winced as the screams in his ear-piece trebled in volume. He knew...he just knew Heero had drawn his Glock from its ankle holster. Oh god...Wufei was the one who had to fill out the forms explaining such things as liability for public disturbances. He could just see a rain of paper being showered onto his desk by a fully recovered and smirking Anthea.

//K'so... // Wufei bit his lip, a vivid picture of the likely scene slamming into him: Heero in the middle of dozens of hysterical, partially dressed females, looking for a female target who'd ripped off her jacket and blouse if she was smart...sticking his gun in the face of anyone with brown hair. Causing more panic...Wufei heard Heero shout something about being a Preventer. No, Yuy, no! How many times do I have to tell you this?! You don't tell them the truth when all they can think about is the piece in your hand! You shout 'police, everybody get down'! You can introduce yourself properly once the bullets stop flying.

While he mentally chewed out his partner - who still had the same subtlety as when he was piloting Wing around - Wufei was also thinking fiercely. This was a bit too slick for an on-the-spur escape. His instinct was telling him Heero wasn't to blame; Wufei was the one who had somehow tipped Hunter off that there was a noose closing in around her. Which meant that she'd headed towards the pool on purpose. But she was smart, and she knew Preventer agents were dogged. He heard, in the crackle of his ear-piece, the agents around the east side shouting at each other, gathering to block the exits from the pool and gym.

A fire alarm started ringing. He could hear it squealing over his ear-piece, and he could also hear it, fainter, coming from the gym and spa up ahead.

"Yuy?"

Heero's answer was covered by all the noise, the siren and some hysterical sobbing; he must be checking the women fleeing the dressing room.

Wufei's eyes narrowed. Floor plans danced in his mind. She could-

He leaned abruptly over the rail guard of the second floor mezzanine of shops.

There! Shit, he'd almost missed her. She'd just burst out of the fire exit that led from the gym to the mall, and she was running - along with a few panicked pool and mall customers - towards the south mall exit, which the agents outside had probably left unattended to circle the gym.

Wufei didn't hesitate. He vaulted neatly over the balustrade and plunged towards the ground floor. He hooked one of the floating billboards in passing, then tumbled into a planter full of unhappy medicated mall plants, breaking his fall in the synthetic dirt they were supposed to thrive on, and rolling to absorb the impact. He was up and running in one smooth movement, eyes fixed on the cream jacket up ahead.

"Yuy! Target acquired! Heading towards south exit!"

//-wh-t- rep- com- in?//

Wufei could barely hear himself think over the alarm’s noise from the ear-piece. Goddammit!

"Yuy! I'm- come in?" He didn't want to shout. Right now he was one of the mall's customers, made jumpy by past wars and air-raid sirens, prudently heading towards the exit at the same rapid pace as Hunter. The exclamations from his descent to the ground floor had been covered by screams from a few people bursting from the gym shouting garbled information about a shooter drawing his gun, and he'd left those behind now. He couldn't alarm Hunter. Right now she was choosing flight over fight, but he knew what she'd do if she thought she'd run out of options.

She burst out of the mall doors and darted to the right, away from the commotion of the gym half a block away. Wufei was almost on her heels, invisible in a small crowd of teens bursting through the doors. Hunter broke into a run towards the other shops of the big shopping area. The teens that'd been Wufei's cover had unfortunately headed left after exiting, to prudently go and see what the commotion around the gym was about. Wufei ripped the Glock from its ankle holster and started to run. Not too many people out here; he'd take the chance.

She dodged without looking behind her into a narrow street leading around the mall, behind other massive stores. No one around.

Got you, you little bitch.

"Hunter! Stop!"

She immediately bolted towards an alley a block away, but a bullet near her ankle forced her to stumble to a halt.

"Put your hands up! If you reach for your jacket, I will kill you." Wufei approached carefully, gun aimed at her chest as she turned around slowly.

She stared at him over the twenty meters distance he was rapidly closing. His demeanor must have shown her he meant what he'd said, because she reluctantly raised her hands. Her fine face was scornful, like a well-brought up young lady forced to bear with a cad. Wufei knew aristocratic disdain down to the ground and he was rather impressed. He fished cuffs from the small backpack he'd been sporting, without ever letting his sights waver-

In war - and in situations like these - there is preparation, strategy, strength, abilities...

...and there is always that portion of blind, rotten luck.

Wufei started at the squeal of tires behind him, but his instincts were to keep his eyes and gun on Hunter.

The car, driving way too fast for a shopping center, or even a normal street, careened into the road behind him.

Wufei finally turned - saw the car roaring towards him, swaying from one side of the narrow street to the other. Which way to dodge- Hunter behind him-

It was coming right at him!

Wufei took three steps at a run, towards the wall - no, won't make it! He leapt just as the front bumper was about to plow into him.

A frozen instant.

Mind-body-chi, launched together into that single point in time. One chance.

He had a clear picture of the car and its driver in that second stretching out like a lifeline he was trying to grasp. She hadn't even seen him, her eyes were on the rear view mirror, wide and terrified. Young, female, wet hair, and naked except for lacy white underwear - the word 'pool' darted through his mind.

He almost made it, but the car's top clipped his foot in passing.

Wrenching pain in his right leg!

He tumbled, rolled off the back of the car. Stink of rubber as tires howled near his head -

Crunch!

He lay for a second, stunned. If that was his spine he heard/felt snap... then he was dead...

Then pain made its appearance, delayed but vicious, and Wufei realized dazedly that he'd probably not broken his back or it wouldn't hurt this much. He twitched and froze. Pain hammered into him. Fuck...Yuy was going to let loose a full blown smirk over this. Run over by a car while he was supposed to - Hunter!

Wufei rolled over and blackness tried to engulf him.

He fought against it. The tarmac was rough beneath his palms. Shit, his entire upper body felt like it had been ripped apart. Blood was spattering the road near his hands. Where was he wounded? He pushed the pain away expertly. His bleeding palms shoved him away from the street, from the black rub of a tire mark.

Where was Hunter? He felt like he was floating as his hands left the cool, rough road. Was he standing? Fuck, he'd hit his head. Maybe it was his skull that had made that sickening crunch of broken bone. He'd seen men with terrible head injuries, holes in their brains, pieces of metal sticking out of their foreheads, walk away dazedly and fall down dead a few feet away...The memories of those deaths kept cutting in front of his eyes, obscuring his view of the road that was tilting beneath his feet.

Something went squish inside his leg - his first indication that he had made it to his feet. His right knee felt like splintered bones floating loose in a bag of water, it twisted helplessly, dumping him onto his back. He was up again immediately, to find himself staring down the muzzle of a gun.

Hunter was there, but he couldn't focus, he kept losing her to darkness. She was in front of him, pointing a gun in his face. Then she was beside him, picking something up. And then she was behind him. Wufei lunged at the flickering shape with an elbow and hit air. His arm was grabbed and twisted behind him. He spun into the movement, ignoring the wrench of pain - would have pulled her towards him and killed her, but his leg wobbled again, spoiling his balance, and she grabbed his left arm and-

 _Pain_. Breathless, red pain.

Wufei almost threw up, but continued fighting. He was moving in slow motion though, as if he were drunk. She had his arm in a hold, he could tell - barely - above the burning, shrieking pain in his left shoulder. He felt something cold settle on his wrist. The arm felt like it belonged to somebody else, severed. Hunter twisted again. She dodged the weakened blow to her head. Wufei gasped and tried to step away from the pain in his shoulder. She shoved him further and kept the pain biting at his heels, hell hounds and darkness and the copper taste of blood from where he bit his lip.

The bang of the metal door being kicked open resounded in his head like a physical blow and made his stomach lurch. His body was a distant thing as she shoved him inside. He swallowed a groan as his shoulder jarred against the floor that rushed up to meet him.

Pain was in the mind. Move beyond it.

The shock was ebbing. He concentrated on reducing the pain. His head still felt a bit fuzzy but clearer. He had a fierce burning at the back of his skull, a throbbing ache. It wasn't as bad as his shoulder though.

He twisted to get up and realized that his hands were cuffed behind him, a bit loosely. He'd dropped his cuffs in the crash, she must have grabbed them. He'd lost his ear-piece and mike -...damn, no one knew which way he'd gone. His Glock was somewhere in the street outside. He was wearing sneakers so he didn't have his boot knife. Hunter had dragged him into the utility shed of a big shop whose back abutted that of the mall. She was standing three meters away, aiming at him with a small caliber pistol he couldn't quite make out in the half light filtering through barred and dirty plastic windows.

Wufei took a deep breath. In. Out. He focused on the gun.

He'd have a chance when she fired - if his body was up to cooperating with his present injuries and wherever she managed to put the bullet when he dodged. Then-...chances were good this was it. Fuck, he'd survived that shit-fight of a war, torture, interrogation, captivity, space battles, and he was going to end up run over by one hysterical female and shot by another. He tensed his muscles. In the back of his mind, the last thought before his focus became absolute was that he hoped Heero would be okay...

"This is fortunate. You are just the man I wanted to see. Well, one of them."

Wufei relaxed slightly. Oh, looked like Hunter wanted to talk. Or gloat. That was unusual from what Une had told them of her, but it was a very good thing for him. It allowed him to live a few more seconds and gave him a better chance of turning the situation in his favor when the time came. He regulated his breathing, forcing the effects of shock and injuries away, though he carefully kept his eyes wide and hopefully looking dazed.

"What...?" he mumbled, to keep up the pretense and keep her talking at the same time.

"I was hoping to meet you. Especially under these circumstances." A clear-cut voice full of elegance and breeding. He didn't look at her face; he kept what he had of his attention focused on the gun.

"...Me?"

"Yes, you. My ultimate target is that traitor, Une. But I was hoping to get a chance at you, or that other one who was chasing me. Either of you will do, really."

Wufei shifted discreetly, trying to judge how mobile he was.

"...Do...?"

"I want to send Une a message, and I'm pretty sure you're the right medium," Hunter explained, her voice neat and precise. For a thumping heart-beat Wufei thought she'd let him live to give Une the message, but he definitely didn't like the word 'medium' in that context. At all. There was a hard edge in her tone. And something he hadn't expected from the hardened killer; a raw edge of emotion he couldn't identify. "It wasn't easy to get information about you. I've seen pictures of all of Une's known operatives, but not just any would do."

Hell, she'd seen his picture. If he survived this, he was never going on another undercover mission ever again. Any would do...? Do for what?

"It had to be you. Well, you or your partner. I've heard from a reliable source - before he was arrested for spying - that you are her two favorites. Her best. I had suspected it actually, so I only needed it confirmed. But it was pretty obvious; she must have bent a lot of rules to get two kids your age working for her."

Whatever. Keep on talking, Hunter. Wufei's body slowly coiled like a spring, getting ready.

"You look like you're expecting something." He could see Hunter better now. Her plain-to-comely face was set in disapproving lines, like a lady faced with a bug. And there was still that edge he didn't understand, that didn't match what he knew of her. Why was she talking...? "Or are you expecting some _one?_ Do you think he'll come and rescue you?"

"...Who?" His left shoulder was injured. And his right leg. He'd go left, but swing to the-

"Your partner. Do you think he'll come and rescue you?"

Wufei blinked.

"Huh?"

"My source said you two have been working closely together for a year. You must think he's your staunchest ally. The one who'll rescue you from certain death."

Rescue...?

Heero and he...they didn't rescue each other. Hell, the most Heero had ever done for him was blow up his prison and hope that would give Wufei a slim chance of breaking out alive before he leveled the place. Except for that time in Italy, and that had been because Quatre had ordered it.

Heero expected him to get out of this sort of mess by himself.

Hunter took a step closer. Against all reason, she was coming _closer_. A ceramic knife glinted like ivory in the dusky light of the shed. Wufei stared at it in blank incomprehension. She already had a gun on him, what-...?

"Trust me, he won't come. He's busy with his duties to her. She's your mentor, isn't she? You're both very young. Easily molded. That's what she'll have taught you: do your duty to her, before all else. Tell me, are either of you besotted with her as she was with Treize? Would you betray your ideals if she asked you to? Would you try to execute your partner if she ordered you to?"

Wufei stared at the knife, weaving through the air, leaving a faint white trail in his eyes, hypnotizing. He couldn't seem to put everything - her words, the knife, her slow approach - together into a coherent picture. Hunter was talking...talking...she was more efficient than that, he knew it. And only an idiot would approach a Gundam pilot even under these circumstances. What was she saying...? Message...for Une?

Hunter's mouth twisted. He could see her eyes, a deep brown. They were, strangely enough, quite sane. He'd have liked her a bit better if the fall of Romefeller had made her snap.

"He won't come to save you. You are going to die. Normally I pride myself on making my executions quick and efficient, but this time I need to make an exception. Tell me, do you think he will cry, your partner, your friend, when he sees what I've done to you? Do you think she will?"

"Yuy?!" Wufei's head was seriously starting to spin.

"Yuy? Is that his name? I will visit him as well eventually, once I find out where he lives. If I cannot reach her first, I wouldn't mind seeing her bury both her pupils. I wish I'd seen her bury Treize. I wish I had been the one to kill him, not that Gundam pilot." Wufei's eyes widened. "I was helping the Syndicate kill the peace she betrayed everything for, but she was too good for those little crooks. Well, I will just have to make this more personal. More direct. Starting with you."

He stared at her. The surprise was making his ears buzz. She was saying something about Une having betrayed Romefeller and failing her responsibilities to uphold the values of her class as she approached him with the knife.

"Why...exactly...are you going to kill me?" So many people tried to kill him. Because of who he was, what he was, what he had been. He'd never been incidental before.

Hunter was two feet away, gun in one hand, knife in the other. Wufei was still flat on his back, hands cuffed behind him, making his shoulder ache with each rapid beat of his heart.

"So young. Did you sell your soul to her? Would you betray your partner if she asked you to?"

"...No."

"Ah." A look of bitterness passed over her face. "Then you're either deluded or you're the fool of the pair. Colony born, by your accent. I guess that after betraying Romefeller, she couldn't find any person of quality to work for her. Treize was a gentleman - but he was a fool and a traitor to his class as well. And she followed him blindly and helped bring about his bastard peace, without any kind of moral control by the elite. If I didn't hate her so much, I would be very disappointed in her stupidity."

"...Romefeller."

Hunter finally focused on him. He had the feeling she would have said all that even if he'd been lying in a coma at her feet. Maybe not quite that sane after all.

"I see you're still dazed. That's probably better for you. I have no interest in your suffering, only in the end result. I'll make this as quick as I can-"

"You...don't know..." His head was aching, but one thought was clear.

"Don't know? Wh-"

"-who I am." Wufei concluded, and broke the wrist holding the gun with one clean kick. It fired but he'd already rolled, ignoring the pain, up in a crouch- shoved her and the knife away with a head butt to the stomach. Hunter landed on her rump. The knife skittered away.

Then with a wrenching agony that almost made him pass out, he slipped his body back through the circle of his cuffed hands. He was normally limber enough to do this, but his entire left side felt like it had been turned into a single inflexible slab of raw meat, and if Hunter had tightened the cuffs more, so they held at the wrist instead of sliding almost to his palms, he'd have been helpless. Through the great big blotches that ate at his vision, he kept his eyes fixed on the fallen gun. His cuffed hands snatched it up just as another hand reached for it. He swung it up and fired. Missed, but Hunter froze, staring into the barrel now pointed at her face.

"Let's do this again," Wufei announced clearly and coldly, though his mouth was gummy with blood and his jaw felt stiff. But his vision had cleared with the feel of the gun against his palm, and his hand was as steady as a rock. "Don't move, Hunter. Put your hands up. I'm much more than you think I am, and you had many, many better reasons to kill me out of hand and from a prudent distance than the fact that I work for Une. I will shoot you if-"

Hunter leapt to her feet, lunged sideways and ran for the door.

Wufei wasn't a gentleman along the lines of Treize or Romefeller's gentry. He shot her through the back of the knee. Hunter went down with a terrible scream, rolling and clutching her leg.

Wufei struggled to his feet. His right leg almost gave out beneath him again, but he braced it and moved towards her carefully. The tarmac, the light from outside, the clouds - everything was dancing in choppy sequence again now that he was standing. He kept his attention focused on Hunter, despite the black spots that peppered the sides of his vision, narrowing it. He leaned over her cautiously - the world dipped and turned, but fortunately she was too busy with her ruined leg and broken wrist to take advantage of his swaying.

She had no other weapons. Wufei grabbed a cell-phone from her jacket's pocket and went to sit down on the doorstep, leaning gratefully against the jamb. He looked around vaguely. No-one was around. The fleeing woman in the car must not have warned anybody about the pedestrian she'd mowed down. Hell, after having Yuy in mission mode stick a gun in her face in the pool's dressing room, she was probably on the outskirts of Brussels by now and still accelerating. All the Preventers and Wufei's partner must be busy surrounding the gym. Over the fire alarm, they wouldn't have heard the gunshots.

He stared at the phone for a few seconds. His mind kept swimming, as if he were on the edge of forgetting what he was about to do. The gun pointing at the gasping, white-faced Hunter was perfectly steady though. Wufei dialed almost on automatic. He couldn't even remember if Heero had his cell on him...but that was the number his fingers had chosen and his mind couldn't provide an alternative at the moment.

//Who is this?// His partner's voice was clear and crisp. Wufei was silent for a second - then realized the faint sense of surprise that had made him pause had come from the lack of female screeches in the background. Apparently his partner had finished checking the women in the dressing room. Wufei found himself smiling. It hurt so he stopped.

//Hello?//

"Yuy."

//Chang?! Is that you?//

"Hm. Need..." something like hysterical laughter crept up upon him, making his head ache. "Need you to rescue me...apparently." The cuffs clinked. His shoulder ached as he leaned over to talk in the phone while keeping the gun on Hunter.

There was an interesting second of silence.

//What?//

"I need you to rescue me." Wufei smiled at Hunter who didn't get the joke. She'd slumped against the tarmac, face pale and sweating, eyes wide. Still glaring at him though. The woman had grit.

There was another second of hesitation. //Wufei? Where are you?//

Wufei blinked bemusedly. Oh yeah, their emergency code. If he answered using Heero's first name, it meant that he was in immediate danger and that someone was listening in on the conversation.

"I'm...somewhere behind the mall. Yuy," he remembered to add, so his partner would realize no one was holding him hostage and making him call at gun-point. "To the south and west a bit, between two buildings. I have Hunter. But I had a bit of an accident."

//... Are you all right?// Heero's voice kept fading. Wufei hoped it was the phone's connection that wasn't too good, rather than a sign he was about to pass out.

"Injured. Mobile, 60%. Concussed, maybe." The cuffs clinked and he swore; the gun had dipped. The small Browning he'd lifted from his target was feeling as heavy as a machine gun. Hunter didn't look up to taking advantage, but she might try to crawl away if he lost his focus. He stared at her and big black blotches almost hid her from sight. "Almost certainly concussed. Need assistance. Hunter down. Get an ambulance-"

//I have one on its way.// From the rhythmic break in his voice, Heero was running.

The cuffs clinked again.

"Ah, er, I lost my backpack. Get someone to bring bolt-cutters. And Yuy...I am armed. If you so much as smirk when you get here, may my Ancestors forgive me but, partner or not, I will shoot you."

//What?!//

Wufei let the phone slip from his numb hand. He thought he'd heard that last exclamation from the street nearby; Heero was coming. From a long way away he saw his other hand prop the Browning against his knee, pointing in Hunter's general direction. He kept his other leg stretched out, stiff and aching. The pain in his shoulder was a throb, a second heartbeat. He kept his eyes and his gun firmly on Hunter until someone gently pried it out of his grip, and then he passed out.


	30. Partners, Part II

"True nature and real commitment are revealed in time of difficulty"  
\--- Chinese proverb

 

It was leaning over that was the tactical mistake. But the one-time heir to the Dragon clan did not go down on one knee like an old man to pick up a book on a shelf.

Leaning forward caused the chair he was steadying himself against to shift and tilt up on two legs. With his usual speed and reflexes, his good hand let go of the wobbling chair and caught the low bookshelf to steady him, sending its contents tumbling. That would have been all right, but the sudden movement put weight on his knee. The injured one. The cast supported the knee enough to avoid serious damage, but the pain made him flinch. He shoved away from the bookshelf, trying to get back to his previous one-legged balance - and overcompensated. His shoulders jerked - his collarbone protested - he fell backwards. As a last resort he twisted to at least get his good hand under him as he-

Wufei stared down at the floor, which was at arms-length from giving him a nasty full-body slap. Three fingers were brushing the linoleum. He hovered there, thinking muzzily, oh, I didn't know I could do that. He'd jerked the IV drip of pain-killer and sedative mix from his arm half an hour ago, but he was still feeling the effects, at least as far as cognitive and reasoning abilities went.

"Weren't you supposed to stay in bed?" the familiar nasal monotone drawled above his right ear.

Wufei blinked and tried to turn his head, but that hurt. So he looked down, down past his fingers barely pressing against the linoleum, to where a strong arm had caught him around the waist. Oh, well, that explained it then...

"I wanted a book."

Heero carefully maneuvered him up and around, avoiding Wufei's taped left arm. "You're supposed to call the nurse for that."

"I'm not calling a nurse to fetch a book nine feet away from my bed!"

Heero bent over and picked him up with ridiculous ease, not even bothering to respond to that last remark. Wufei was left to splutter indignantly.

"Put me down! I can walk! This is all your fault!"

His partner glanced down in mild surprise.

"You should have put my books closer to the bed!" Wufei was, it bore repeating, still under the influence of a mild sedative.

"Oooh."

Fuck, why did I ever teach him sarcasm? "Just-... put me down!"

"I will. Over there," Heero announced, jerking his head towards the bed with the kind of no-argument voice he used to say ‘omae o korosu’. "But first-" he turned them towards the fallen books. "Which one did you want?"

"All of them."

Heero's arms were barely straining in exertion beneath him. The warmth of Heero's skin was perceptible through his jacket. Wufei was wearing a long sleeved tee shirt and loose sweatpants over his cast, the closest the Ops clinic had gotten him into hospital clothes. The heat seemed to sear right through his clothing as if they weren't there, and he shivered, feeling strangely naked in his partner's arms.

"Which one do you want now?" Heero asked patiently.

"All of them!" Wufei snapped. He was cross with his helplessness, his injuries, with his cast sticking straight out ridiculously. With the remains of the sedative in his system. With Heero's warmth and strong arms. And above all with the tiny part of him that wanted to just relax into that hold and curl up into the warmth and go to sleep.

"I'll go put you down on the bed, then, and bring the books closer," Heero concluded. He still sounded remarkably patient. Wufei squinted up at him from his position. If his partner was humoring him-

"I want the analysis and biography of Xu Zhi Mo. The black book," he muttered, making a 'put me down and I'll get it already' gesture with his good hand.

Heero turned and knelt in one fluid movement. The end of Wufei's gesture ended up an inch above the designated book. The arms were tight around him, letting him know that there was no way he was going to be swinging his feet to the floor a few inches away. Wufei sulkily picked up the book, and Heero stood again as if he were carrying a damned woman who'd had a fainting fit. The recipient of his kindness had the feeling his partner was enjoying this a bit too much, being able to pick up and carry the stubborn and prideful Chang Wufei -

Heero froze so suddenly it jogged Wufei's collarbone and knee. Wufei glared, and then he realized where Heero was staring. He'd seen _it_.

"What...is that?" Heero was looking at Wufei from the corner of his eye now, as if wondering what kind of drugs the hospital had given him. The expression was even more curious seen from Wufei's current angle.

"That is what will ornament Maxwell's tombstone as soon as I can walk again."

"Ah. Maxwell." A relieved smile flickered at the corner of Heero's mouth. He was almost grinning as he looked at _it_ again. Wufei turned his head to glare too. The bright orange, two feet high stuffed dragon with a medallion reading 'Get Well!' around its neck stared back from the bedside table where the nurse insisted on putting it each time Wufei threw it into the darkest corner he could find.

"Why don't you get rid of it?" Heero still wasn't moving; he was holding his partner easily and lightly, as if he were a child. Wufei wondered if you could pop a vein in sheer indignant embarrassment.

"It's a gift," he muttered, concentrating on Heero's question to avoid dwelling on his position. "It's not something you can throw away." The idea of such informality and rudeness hurt him almost as much as the sight of _it_.

The smile disappeared from Heero's mug like water evaporating on a skillet. "You're taking it back with you?"

"Don't worry. I'll keep in the study. You won't have to look at it. I'll give it to someone's kid at Christmas next year."

Heero stared at the dragon. The dragon stared back with its plastic eyeballs. 

"It'll be in a box. Out of sight. I know I'm a guest in your house, Yuy. Well, now _it_ is a guest too," Wufei declared waspishly and slapped Heero's shoulder to get him moving again.

Heero stared at _it_ for a few more bemused seconds, then carried Wufei towards the bed. The injured man bit back a groan as Heero laid him down. The ligaments in his knee had been snapped in the accident. A surgeon had repaired them through keyhole surgery yesterday, once the swelling in his brain had gone down, permitting anesthesia. Ceramic alloy had been injected into his broken clavicle at the same time, repairing the bone, leaving only a few stitches as a visible sign of injury. He'd been afforded the best of modern care, and he was going to be back on his feet at a remarkable rate considering his injuries. Why then did he still feel like shit?

"Why did you rip out the drip of pain-killer?"

"I feel fine! I don't need any drugs."

Heero nodded. At least he understood that one hundred percent. When Sally showed up on the next of her all-too-frequent visits, she would undoubtedly have kittens.

Wufei glared grumpily at his partner who'd gone to pick up a few of the books and carry them and the low book shelf back towards the bed.

"Weren't you supposed to get me out of here today?"

Heero put the shelf down right next to the bed, concentrating on the task and not looking at Wufei. "Sally decided to keep you in ICU another day or two for observation."

"What?! And you agreed?!"

"Chang, four days ago you were run over by a car going at over forty miles per hour. Most people would be dead." Heero glared at the book he was holding, leaving Wufei to wonder fuzzily what the poet Li Bai had ever done to the soldier. "You had a severe concussion, your collarbone-"

"- was snapped in two places, my shoulder blade was cracked, the ligaments and muscles of my right leg were torn, the cartilage mushed up. Sally gives me the total every time she comes to see me, and she comes around a lot. Anyway, this is all your fault!"

Heero gave him that patient 'now what's he come up with?' look again.

"You're the one who scared that poor woman into fleeing the pool naked!"

"I didn't force her to get into her car and mow you down."

"You scared the shit out of her!"

"And I already apologized for that. Shall I do it again?" Heero asked, perfectly indifferent. He had no self-consciousness; he'd apologize every ten seconds for the next ten hours until Wufei's ears started to bleed if he thought that could get his cranky partner off his back. Wufei, the wind effectively robbed from his sails, grumbled and slouched back against the padded cushion that still managed to hurt his shoulder.

He wanted out. This place was trying his nerves. He didn't like hospitals at the best of times, and as a patient, he felt helpless. He wasn't supposed to walk, and his left arm was taped to his chest, to make sure that the compound fracture in his shoulder didn't get any worse while the ceramic alloy settled firmly into the bone. His gun arm was intact, bar a few cuts and bruises, but that didn't matter since he didn't have a weapon anyway. Heero, in an act of treason Wufei was still very angry about, had refused to return the favor from Berlin and smuggle Wufei's Luger past Sally, insisting that this was the Ops clinic and quite safe.

The problem with the Ops clinic - which, granted, was safer than a regular hospital - was that it made it easy for people to drop by and visit. Apparently the novelty of Chang Wufei getting himself laid out by a car still hadn't worn off. Sam passed by on a daily basis to poke fun at him. So did agent Louis Armand, though he was infinitely more suave about it. Every other person Wufei knew came by to say 'hi' on the way to their desks. Une had dropped by a couple of times to comment dryly about his suspect apprehension technique. Even Anthea had shown up to gloat and promise to hold his paperwork for him for when he got better. And Sally! Lucrezia Noin had resigned two months ago and disappeared off to Mars after getting a letter from a friend or something; Wufei hadn't really paid attention to the details. So Sally was now head of the clinic and worked in the anti-biochemical weapons division next door as well. She was here almost every hour. Today she'd been by three times already. She kept laughing and chatting with him. They should check for fumes in that bloody lab of hers.

Heero was getting the fallen books. He'd only been by once so far; he'd been busy finishing the arrests they'd set up, and interrogating Hunter. Wufei was rather pissed off at his partner for not keeping him a bit better informed, or dropping by to say 'hi', even. Of course, Heero was busy. And he was going to be even busier for the next few weeks, if what Agent Armand had said was true...Armand had just casually dropped the information this morning on his way to the combat course. 'Une is sending me with Heero on that mission in Minsk. Don't worry, Wufei! It's not a particularly dangerous job. I'd say that I'll take care of him, but we both know that it's more likely to be the other way around.'

Wufei's mood, not the best the past few days, had taken a definite nose-dive after that. He was sure that, later, he'd feel sorry for the way he'd treated that nurse who came in to change his dressing. Now he was just waiting for Heero to tell him. Explain why Wufei wouldn't be seeing him at all for a few weeks. Not that he'd seen Heero much these past few days anyway.

Hell, what was that irritating partner of his doing now? Heero was slowly putting away the stacks of books, glancing at a few titles. He was ordering them alphabetically within the languages and dusting them off while he was at it.

"You'll make some lucky guy a good wife one day, Yuy," Wufei muttered, annoyed at the fussing.

"Screw you, Chang," Heero countered without much rancor.

"Just leave it-"

"Don't they ever dust in here? This can't be hygienic for the patients. Or did you scare the nurses so much that they only come in here to increase your sedative dose?"

Wufei looked at his partner out of the corner of his eye. That had been more amused than critical. Last time Heero had visited, he'd sounded almost cross with Wufei for having the gall to get himself run over, and taking both himself and a now partner-less Heero out of front-line duty. Today it appeared Heero was humoring him. Probably relieved knowing he was going to be out into the field again soon.

"Apparently I'm meant to rest to get better," Wufei growled, attempting to squish the previous thought. "I can't do that with some damn twit fussing around cleaning things up twice a day."

"This place isn't so bad now that Sally's in charge," Heero observed, as he slotted some more books into place. "She understands the requirements of soldiers. Security has been considerably increased since my stay here, and she's set aside small rooms on this floor for long-stay patients. With locks on the door. Allows nurses and physiotherapists to pass by, meals can be delivered, but it still gives the patient a sense of security."

Sense of security...There was only one place Wufei felt safe. Damn, his leg was aching, he'd put too much weight on it earlier.

"I heard they hired an excellent physiotherapist as well, specializes in injuries to athletes." Bloody hell, Heero was being almost as chatty as Sally had been earlier. She'd also gone on and on about improvements to the clinic, these wonderful rooms she'd set up for long-stay patients. Of course she was allowed to be proud of her work, but Wufei-...

Wufei rubbed his face with his hand, defeated. His voice was soft and muffled. "I just want to go home."

"Your leg will require some work." Heero absently righted the fallen stuffed-toy dragon he'd knocked over and went to pick up the rest of the books. "You probably won't be able to take active duty- ...what...did you say?"

Wufei glanced at Heero's suddenly rigid back. His partner's hands were on the last stack of books, but he wasn't lifting them.

"I don't care how proud Sally is of her clinic, Yuy, I want out of here now, not tomorrow," Wufei groused, trying to get comfortable on the goddamn pillow, hopefully for the last time. "I hate this place. It's loud, people drop by unexpectedly, and they're keeping that psycho bitch Hunter three doors away from here, to treat her leg while she's being interrogated. I can't get any sleep because the night nurse does rounds every other hour. I know I can't actually do any fighting for a few weeks, but I can stay at the workshop and work on some files on my laptop, write case reports, do some background checks- just do something."

"So you want to go...?" Heero still hadn't turned around. He was straightening the pile of books again, he seemed intent on getting their spines lined up exactly.

"I want to go back to the safe-house!" Wufei snapped, wondering why this was such a surprise. "I want to sleep in my own bed, not this collection of foam and lumps. Is there a problem?"

"No, no problem." Heero finally stood and turned, his arms crossed severely over his chest but his shoulders slightly hunched. He seemed confused, uneasy, as if he was confronting a situation he hadn't expected and didn't know how to deal with. Wufei frowned, not sure what had startled his partner. He just wanted to go back to his rooms in Heero's converted workshop, with its high-tech security system and a good training area. Heero had practically set fire to the clinic in Ops to get out when he had been injured, trying to get back to somewhere Safe, their controlled environment. He should expect Wufei to have a similar reaction.

Heero stared at the stuffed dragon for a few seconds - without actually seeing it since he wasn't making any snide remarks or wincing. Then he headed towards the door, leaving the books on the floor behind him.

"I'll go talk to Une," he threw over his shoulder.

"Uh? You mean Sally- Yuy?" Wufei stared at the closed door. What had that been about?

He glared at the ceiling for a few minutes. That had become his hobby here. Though he had his books, and he even went through some on occasion, he couldn't actually concentrate enough to work on his scholastic essays. This place wasn't his territory. And he felt cut off from active life. Like they'd shunt him into a corner, disposed of him. Yuy was out there, working, fighting, and Wufei was left here to rot, and he barely got to see his partner except in passing.

The door opened, causing him to start. He'd dozed off.

"Chang? What's this Yuy says? You want to leave?"

Wufei tried to sit up a bit straighter to nod at Une. What was she doing here? And he was leaving soon anyway, what was the big deal?

"Commander, I know Sally wants to keep me under observation for a couple more days, but I don't think that's necessary. I doubt I'll drop dead anytime soon."

Une glanced at Heero in surprise. "Didn't you tell him?"

Heero shrugged. "I don't think he'll be interested."

"So you didn't tell him."

"Tell me what?" Wufei frowned, looking from his boss to his partner in confusion.

"Sally has decided that it might be best if you stayed here for a couple of weeks," Heero explained carefully, as if picking up a live anti-personnel mine.

Which went off in his face right on cue.

" _What?!_ "

"You're going to need intense physiotherapy for the damaged muscles and ligaments in your leg, someone has to help you with that," Une pointed out impatiently. "And you can't drive here in your present state. You can't even -

"I'll be fine!" Wufei snapped. "A taxi can take me to Sally's torture sessions."

"You can't walk, Chang! Not for a week at least. The ligaments in your leg have just been repaired."

"I'm-" Maybe telling her about his little adventure to the book shelf, using the chair as a crutch, wasn't a good idea. "I'll be fine, just give me a stick and a brace-"

"You have _stairs_! Do you have no common sense?!" Une was doing a spectacular imitation of Sally. Giving him a foretaste of the real thing. Maybe if he begged, Heero would leave Wufei a weapon after all.

"Chang will be capable of limited mobility very quickly," Heero put in suddenly. "Sally underestimates his capacity to recuperate after injury. We can both work online, and I can drive Chang here for his appointments. I can also assist with any take-downs or two-day missions you can give me once Sally gives Chang a crutch. You get two agents on limited duty instead of one agent in need of a proper partner and someone on sick leave." There was a definite take-it-or- leave it in his tone. Une frowned dangerously in response.

Limited... duty...? Wufei stared at Heero, trying to figure out what the hell-

Une was scowling. "But I wanted you to go-"

"It'd be more efficient to have me help Chang get back in the field quicker, than having him waste his time here. I know a lot about treating and retraining after injury, I can help him with his physiotherapy," Heero announced crisply.

Une's widened eyes flickered towards Wufei with a look that clearly stated: 'You poor bastard, you.' Wufei rather agreed.

"Yuy..." He'd just figured out that Heero was offering to be his live-in nurse or something and the idea was making him choke.

The glare he got in return effectively silenced him. Wufei could hold his own in a fight - verbal or physical - against Heero, but that look he never argued with. Heero had made up his mind, with the kind of implacable determination with which he'd shot down Libra. Well, if Heero didn't want to waste his talents on mid-level mission with Armand, and decided instead that it would be more efficient to put his time into getting Wufei back on his feet, that made some sense, Wufei rationalized hesitantly. And at least Wufei wouldn't have to stay in the clinic. He looked away wretchedly, in unspoken assent, and Heero decreased the intensity of the glare a bit and turned it on Une instead.

Une had been looking from one to the other slowly during all this unspoken communication.

"You're sure, Heero? This is a bit above and beyond your duties as a Preventer."

"We're partners," Heero replied and crossed his arms as if there was really nothing left worth discussing.

"Partners...Yes, I've been wondering about that," Une said distantly. She glanced at Heero who was staring back at her with a complete obdurateness that Wufei would have envied. Her eyes became cold and hard, and her voice was harsh as she snapped: "Very well. Take him home, Yuy. I expect you both ready for duty ASAP."

She stepped out the door and closed it behind her sharply. The two men glanced at each other, slightly puzzled; even mildly sedated, Wufei noted that he'd not heard Une's steps move away from the room. After a few seconds of silence, there was shuffle at the door and a small knock.

"Er...Come in." 

Une didn't look angry anymore. Her face was calm, the corners of her mouth slightly down-turned. She only stuck her head and shoulders past the half-open door. Her eyes looked tired, sad and a trifle wary, and she glanced obliquely at Heero.

"Just for...just for my own information. May I know how long you two have been...partners?"

"Since you hired Chang." Heero looked completely nonplussed.

Une glanced at Wufei who dropped his gaze to the sheets covering his cast.

"...We worked together during the war, too," he muttered noncommittally, though the look on his face probably told Une all she wanted to know.

"I see. Thank you." As the door closed behind her, they heard Une mutter: "Good, wasn’t that bloody L3 mission-"

Wufei glared at the sheet, his face warm, then he glanced up briefly. Heero was regarding the door with a slightly puzzled frown on his face. The silence hung between them. Wufei licked his lips and stared at his injured leg again.

"Yuy...there's no reason for you to take light duty while I recover. I can stay here to convalesce. Those rooms Sally set up, that you mentioned. I can-"

"You _would_ be more comfortable staying there," Heero interrupted, and his tone was back to a familiar one, a parody of his war-time monotone. It was the tone he used when they were baiting each other. "You'd only have one physio session a day, and they'd probably go easy on you. A lot easier than I will. Yes, maybe my re-training program will be too difficult for you to bear, maybe-"

"I can take whatever you can dish out, Yuy!" Wufei snarled, extremely grateful that his partner was giving him an easy way of accepting this without being embarrassed.

"Good. There are still a lot of fires to put out. I need you back on your feet a lot quicker than Sally would allow." Heero nodded firmly and headed back towards the door. "I'll go get some bags to put your books in. We'll avoid Sally until you're ready to sign yourself out."

"Prudent." Wufei tried to grin. "Yuy, are you sure-"

He was talking to the door.

 

 

Heero laid Wufei gently on the bed then stood up and stared down at him. Wufei looked back, uncertain and embarrassed; he didn't like being carried around like an invalid, but now he had to resign himself to the fact he would need it. It was the price he'd paid for getting out of the clinic.

Blue eyes wandered to Wufei's window, then centered on him again. Wufei found himself scrunching down against the pillow, bracing himself. Heero looked like he wanted to say something very serious and Wufei just hoped it wasn't criticism regarding the necessities Wufei was imposing on him.

"We'll start on your injured leg after we see the specialist and decide on a reeducation program, but we can work on your abs this afternoon, and your other leg as well," Heero announced, turning abruptly.

Wufei felt relieved. Mainly. A slight disappointment was quickly squashed. After all, if Heero had said something like 'welcome back', or 'it's nice to have you around again', Wufei would probably have had a heart attack to add to his other physical ailments.

Heero was looking around Wufei's room as if he'd never seen it before. That slightly confused dip had returned to the lines of his shoulders, as if he were looking for something and was not even sure what. Wufei watched him, puzzled. There wasn't anything left to say anyway, was there? Oh, maybe there was.

"I don't have much stuff, as you can see," Wufei supplied. "It shouldn't be too hard to move it all out."

Heero started and turned to stare at him. "What?"

"When we move. Have you found a new place yet?" Apparently that had not been what Heero had been thinking about. But he had his partner's full attention now.

"New place?"

"Yes. You were talking about selling this house. Getting a new place somewhere."

Heero was silent. He undid the zip on the big bag he'd brought and started piling books near Wufei's bed. He lifted the toy dragon out too, looked at it blankly and then dropped it back in the bag again and stood up, slipping the strap over his shoulder.

"Yuy?"

"What?" Heero glanced at him.

"New house? You were talking about it that time you stopped by the clinic. We need to move out of here, the Syndicate know this address."

"Only some of the upper echelons. They kept all their sources of information very close to their chest, to avoid a leak that could tell us how deeply Ops had been compromised. Take Hunter; she didn't know where we lived, and she was one of their top assassins."

Wufei distinctly felt his jaw hit his taped collarbone. "Maybe only a few people know this address, but that's all it'd take!"

"My security system has been improved; it is now inviolable," Heero replied matter-of-factly. "We really don't have much to fear from a few goons bursting through the door waving guns."

"They could just leave a car-bomb outside the workshop instead!"

"I'll put a proximity sensor on the perimeter if you're worried about that. No one else drives up around here. Personally I don't think they'll dare move against us; they know who we are." Heero was clearly dismissing the discussion as he turned towards the door. "Have you taken your medicine? Do you need anything?"

"No-yes, I took my medicine, no, I don't need anything, but about the-"

"This place is satisfactory. It is efficient for us. I'm not moving." Heero's voice was firm as it echoed from the hallway outside. "Call me if you need anything, I'll be in my room."

Wufei stared at the half-open door. What had all that been about? When had Heero changed his mind?

The irritation of the half-open door was distracting him from speculation, like an itch he couldn't scratch or, in this instance, get up and close. He hated leaving his door open, but Heero would point out that Wufei needed to be able to call his partner without moving from the bed. Sally had been quite explicit - and fairly threatening - about the level of care Wufei would need for at least a week, before he could even use a crutch. Wufei winced at the thought of what Heero would have to do until Wufei regained some of his independence. But he'd do the same for Heero, they both knew that, and that thought placated Wufei a bit. Granted, Heero hadn't ever actually required it. He'd been mobile when he had left the clinic with his back injury.

Wufei could feel himself falling asleep. The ache in his shoulder and leg had faded a bit. After days of sleeping with one eye open, his body was galloping towards rest, knowing he was somewhere safe. Someone was watching over him...His mind drifted. There'd been a time he'd had to sacrifice something important to him to look after his partner. During the war. When Heero had been exhausted but refused to admit it, when he couldn't sleep, on an adrenaline high and a mission the next day. Wufei had-...ah, helped him with that. Huh, why be coy, Chang: he'd jerked Heero off. That had been a considerable gesture for him to make, at the time...now it appeared so little...

Maybe Heero had thought of that when he'd offered to take care of Wufei now.

No. That wasn't it. Wufei always kept a healthy ring of skepticism around his feelings for the arrangement between them, but Heero's simple, straightforward words cleaved right through it. His partner still thought in straight lines, and meant what he said.

We're partners. I need you back on your feet.

It had all been there in Heero's words, his stance, his stubborn scowl at Une. Heero considered Wufei an indispensable part of his operational efficiency. That had already been the case when Wufei had first joined Ops, but things had changed: Heero could now work with other people who hadn't been Gundam pilots. Yuy had grown in that respect - possibly under Wufei's influence. The partners had joined other units during previous operations, and working with the highest quality personnel like Armand, Sanji and others had proven to be no problem. But from what Heero had said - and everything in his stance and stubborn glare had confirmed his words - he felt himself to be more efficient with Wufei than with anybody else.

Wufei appreciated this as a warrior would.

He stared at the ceiling, comfortingly familiar compared to the one in the Ops clinic. Une had sure been surprised. Her assessment of Heero had been similar to Hunter's: everything for the mission. And that was true. Wufei knew it to the depth of his soul. But what Une - and Wufei himself - had not appreciated was the fact that Wufei was now part of the mission.

Hunter. Une. Partners. He'd been doing a lot of thinking these past few days in the clinic. There was a whole history there, one he had only glimpsed. He didn't want a closer look.

He could understand Hunter, and that rather frightened him. He knew how it felt to have your beliefs shattered and swept aside by real life and history, not once but several times. Meiran's death, Treize defeating him, the changing allegiances of war, his colony's destruction...Unlike Hunter, he'd survived the experience, and let it teach him a cold wisdom. Fight for Justice, but don't expect the universe to play fair in return.

And, unlike Hunter, Wufei was not going to expect more out of Heero than the latter could give him.

Do you think he'll come rescue you?

No, I don't, Hunter. I don't need him to, and he doesn't expect me to need his help, and that is my pride and my fulfillment.

But Heero wouldn't betray Wufei either, simply because Wufei never expected anything more from Heero than to follow his own steel convictions to their logical conclusion. When Wufei's beliefs crumbled once more, when he felt weak and directionless, he knew he could always rely on that. He _needed_ Heero's single-minded pursuit of what mattered: peace, the mission, perfection. He needed that too much to ever wish for something else.

You were the fool, Hunter. You decided to fasten yourself on a part of Une that didn't exist, that was a mirage. If you, like Treize, had dug deeper and found the true heart of her convictions...well, it wouldn't have been for you, but it wouldn't have betrayed you either, it would have always been there.

If you'd understood that, then you would truly have been her partner.

He remembered Une's face when she'd told them to terminate Hunter if they had no other choice. Yeah, going down that avenue was messy.

The light in Heero's eyes burned only for the mission to which his entire life had been dedicated; he had never had anything else, he knew of nothing else. He needed Wufei's clear, cold and detached support at his back while he walked that road. And Wufei needed Heero to be the solid, reliable foundation upon which to build himself into the best man he could be, the best warrior. The kind that really didn't need rescuing at all. It was the perfect partnership, and he'd only just realized how deeply it went both ways.

Yes, they understood each other perfectly.

...Except the bit about the house...It was unlike Yuy to be stubborn about something like this. Sure, the place was efficient, but expediency and safety indicated they should move.

Must be the springboard floor of the dojo...Heero had put a lot of work into that, it'd be hard to find anything half as good as this place, that was for sure...Wufei's eyes were shut, and he was drifting.

...Pity, he'd have liked the opportunity of paying his half of the house this time...but he did like his room here. He felt safe...

Wufei heard keys clicking two doors down. He fell asleep soon afterwards.


	31. Breaking Storm, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go. The title is appropriate as this is the part where all hell breaks loose. 
> 
> WARNING: Bad shit up ahead. Things get real nasty. Physical and emotional violence, mentions of torture and abuse, etc.

"A spark can light a fire that burns the entire prairie"  
\--- Chinese proverb

 

"How can this be?! I am the strongest of my clan!"

Meiran's face was bruised, but despite her words, she looked undefeated. Still stubborn. Still unrepentant.

So Wufei hit her again.

And again.

She stopped screaming when his fist connected with her throat. She could only wheeze and choke as he continued to beat her. Her thrashing body wrenched a few more flowers from their roots, and he felt a moment of regret for that.

Wufei woke with a strangled shout. He lay in bed, heart hammering, the sharp tang of nausea curdling in his mouth. Damn, even his fists were aching as if-

Someone in the room.

"It's me." The words were soft but quick as Wufei made a lunge for the gun on his bedside table.

"Yuy." Wufei fell back limply. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

"What the hell are _you_ doing in here," Heero countered crisply. "You were thrashing and groaning - I thought someone was trying to cut your throat."

The door was open, letting in a thin ghost of gray light from outside. Dawn must be breaking through the big high windows of the main room downstairs. Heero was standing near the foot of the bed. The dim glimmer hung off the barrel of his gun.

"Didn't mean to alarm you. Nightmare," Wufei answered curtly, trying to hide the fact that his voice and hands were still shaking. "Don't tell me you don't have them." His partner had to be at least _that_ human.

"Yes, but not loud enough to wake you," Heero pointed out laconically. He'd taken a step closer.

"Oh. Sorry -" but Heero cut his apology short with a gesture, a dark slash of movement against the dim light from the door.

"I was up already. I had something to take care of."

"Oh." Wufei turned his head away slightly and closed his eyes, not that he ever wanted to sleep again. Then he realized Heero had not left the room. In fact he'd taken another step closer. He was almost besides the bed now. Wufei slowly opened his eyes and twisted his head to look up at his partner. He couldn't see Heero's features, only his silhouette cut out against the dimness.

"...What?"

"Are you okay? That sounded like a bad one."

Wufei stared at the dark figure, trying to interpret this. It could be the opening gambit of a good verbal put-down, but Heero's tone was too soft and neutral for that. Maybe he was just curious to see what demons were strong enough to make Chang Wufei wake up screaming.

"I'm fine," Wufei muttered.

He stiffened even more in shock and surprise as Heero took that last step, and then sat down on the side of the bed.

"Do you...want to talk about it? I hear that helps."

"Not really." Wufei could feel his gorge rise at the thought. He shifted uncomfortably. Heero was close; Wufei could feel the shift in the bed under his partner's weight, the warmth on his skin from the other's proximity.

Wufei nearly jerked himself off the pillow as he realized that the darker streak in front of his eyes was a hand reaching for him. He was as tense as a board as the fingers, unexpectedly gentle, brushed his forehead.

"You're sweating," Heero whispered. "Will you even be able to get back to sleep?"

"Sure," Wufei croaked, mind whirling.

The fingers, suddenly clumsy and unsure, wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. The gesture was not erotic, was not meant to be. Heero was caressing him like a frightened and wounded animal.

"Tell me. What was it about?" The order was gruff. Behind it, Wufei heard a faint concern and even, maybe, a slight tinge of compassion that made his heart twist in his chest.

Something in him broke, and left him adrift and fragile. "It...it was about Meiran. I-..." He hesitated, as did the fingers on his cheek.

"Your wife?"

"Yes. I- I never did that-...I-" To his horror he realized his voice was choked and he was trembling.

"Shhh." So gentle. The fingers wiped away the sweat, the horror, the sin. "Don't worry about it." Heero's voice was so soft it made him ache, it made him want to wrap himself in the warmth, in that unexpected gentleness.

He tensed helplessly when Heero leaned forward to switch on the bedside lamp. The crude light would break the illusion that his partner cared for him other than as part of their efficient unit. And yet...Heero was there, in the flesh, as real as life under the soft yellow light, and his eyes were sad and free of any condescension or contempt. He reached for Wufei's cheek again - the gun in the other hand pointed loosely at the floor - and Wufei found himself leaning into that touch, that comforting caress.

"Don't worry about it," Heero repeated. A slight smile lifted the corner of his mouth, lightened his eyes.

"I'm not," Wufei mumbled, but couldn't get the fire up for any kind of strong denial. He felt himself go boneless and inviting as Heero slipped off the bed to kneel beside it and rested his head on his hand near the jet-black hair spilling on the pillow.

"No more nightmares about her. I took care of it, Wufei." Heero's breath was warm against his face, the blue eyes so close. Then Heero turned his head and gestured with the gun. Wufei's eyes followed it automatically.

"She'll never bother us again," Heero concluded as he pointed at Meiran's body on the floor, blood from the headshot irreparably staining the carpet, bone and matter splattered across Wufei's books nearby.

Wufei ripped himself from sleep with a scream, fighting it and the sheets until he woke up. Through the blood pounding in his ears, he heard the slam of Heero's door opening and the tread of quick bare feet.

No stay away stay away stay away-

Two sharp raps on his door. "Chang? Was that you?"

"I'm all right." His voice was a rasp, a wound. "Just a nightmare. Go away."

The doorknob creaked as a hand hesitated on it, and then he heard Heero return slowly back to his own bed. Wufei stared at the ceiling until his vision started to twitch in time with the slamming of his heart against his ribcage. His nausea slowly died down to where he felt he could move without losing his dinner.

Fourth time this week. At least he was awake now. He hoped. A glimmer of gray light filtered through the slats of his blinds. From under the door as well, once he could bear to look in that direction. He glanced at his watch. It was not quite five in the morning. He would get no more sleep that night, and he had a furious desire to get out of the sweat-soaked bed sheets. Their touch made his skin crawl, they reeked of pain and fear. Might as well go in to the office. The more he worked, the sooner this investigation would be over and the sooner he could sleep again. He got dressed with his eyes almost closed and took a detour around the spot where Meiran's body had lain.

 

 

Wufei sat staring at the folder on his desk. It felt weird to have a desk; his usual line of work rarely required one. He was still on light duty though. His shoulder and knee, injured in the car accident while chasing Hunter, were painful and stiff, and would not allow him back onto the field. Not when 'the field' covered the sort of missions the partners were normally given.

So he'd been provisionally assigned to a different Preventer bureau until he was fit for regular duties again. He'd been given a temporary office in the Preventer main building for the duration of the investigation, a Special Investigator's badge, a folder and a whole lot of nightmares.

The words on the folder were innocuous.

"Investigation WCC-000102 - War Crimes Committee  
Attack and Destruction of Colony A0206"

A0206. His clan's colony.

A blanket pardon had been released for all war time activities, which allowed Wufei and Heero and many others to lead a normal life. The time for revenge was over, lest they all end up in hell again. But Relena and the others had shown a bit of backbone, of sound judgment, of foresight. Some things could not be swept under the carpet and discarded from memory. History should not be forgotten or it would surely be repeated.

So a war-crimes committee had been set up in the ESUN courts in Brussels. The WCC was not a prosecuting body. They did not have the authority to conduct arrests or condemn anybody. They were there to investigate, and record, and remember. The results of their inquiries would become public property, though the names of those involved were held in secrecy.

The Preventers assisted investigations when needed. Wufei had first come into contact with this particular case when he'd been asked to give his own testimony about the end of his colony. Then Une had asked him to assist with the investigation, since he was unable to take field duty for a while anyway.

Wufei had hesitated, and had mentioned the investigation to Heero. His partner was also on light duty while Wufei was incapacitated, but they'd been working together on research, hacks, profiling. 'Light Duty' in Une's book meant thirteen hour workdays with no heavy lifting. If Wufei took the WCC investigation, and Heero decided to keep on working for Une instead of helping Wufei, that would leave Heero neck-deep in work. Maybe he should -

“That's fine,” Heero had said firmly. “Do what you need to do. I can cover both our duties for the time it takes you.”

Oh good. That hadn't been what Wufei had been trying to ask though.

It was understood that this was a simple investigation, which hardly required both of the Intervention Division's top operatives.

Wufei had still wanted Heero's help, and his support. That sounded so weak and pathetic that it made him wince each time the memory of that disappointment crossed his mind. But this...this investigation reopened old wounds that were far more dire than the injuries Heero was helping him with.

He sighed as his hand flattened the folder. Not much in it yet. But a few promising leads already into both crimes. Wufei and Susan had decided that, since an investigation had been opened, they should look into the original attempt against his colony as well as its final obliteration. The committee had agreed; the destruction of the colony was a bit muddled, having been caused by its own inhabitants under duress. But the first attack against A0206, when Wufei was fourteen, the one which had ended in Nataku's death, had been an attempt to slaughter civilians with biological weapons: a crime against humanity. Definitely something that needed to be recorded and remembered. Even if it cost him whatever strenuous peace of mind he'd managed to salvage from the war.

Wufei dutifully slipped his laptop into its docking station. He closed his eyes, breathed in and out slowly, cleansing his mind, reaching for emotional detachment...and then he started doing research on the Colonel who had, without blinking, signed off on the transfer of loaded pest-control canisters to an Alliance unit going to an inhabited colony.

Sally Po had been the head of that unit; she was one of the many people to come forward of their own accord with information regarding the crime she'd been forced to almost participate in. According to her freely offered testimony, General Septem had been the true instigator of the order to 'clean out' A0206 with pest control gas. But the general had been smart and kept his nose clean. Besides, he was dead. His name and actions were recorded, but they would never get the full truth from him. A certain Colonel Wen, however, had acted as the General's factotum and had given the actual order. Wufei was quite looking forward to having a chat with Colonel Wen.

After an hour, the silence and the dead ends nibbled at his concentration. The gentle, annoying thrum of a vacuum cleaner finished the job. He'd beaten the cleaning crew in this morning, but they'd caught up to him eventually. Wufei sighed and stretched, slipped off his glasses, then stood up and wandered over to the window, not bothering with the walking stick Sally insisted he use for a few more days.

She was a fussy woman, Wufei grumbled internally, casting a glance of loathing back at the stick. Master Li had been in his eighties and he'd not needed a stick! Wufei was well on the mend anyway. He was lucky; fifty, hell, even twenty years ago, that accident would have left him with a badly weakened knee joint and a stiff shoulder. But today's surgical technology could fix such things nearly perfectly. One of the fall-outs of war, ironically enough. You could always count on warfare to improve medical care, as a rule.

And what the miracle of modern medicine couldn't accomplish, grueling retraining by one Heero Yuy could definitely top off, Wufei thought with a grimace. Painful and strenuous, certainly, but Sally had told Wufei during his last check-up that he was way ahead of the recovery curve. He should be back in top shape in no time. Though not getting any sleep was beginning to hamper him a bit.

Wufei stared out the window blankly. He concentrated on the view, trying to extirpate the memory of last night's gut-wrenching dream from his tired mind. Dawn had broken fully, a gray rainy day, low clouds clinging to Brussel's highest buildings. In the streets below a few people were walking with fast, purposeful strides, and a car swished past, its headlights pale in the half-light.

The intercom's chirp made him start.

"Chang here."

//Wufei? Hah, knew it. I've just arrived, and in a few minutes I might even be awake. You busy? Want to drop by?//

"I'll be there in five minutes."

//Great.//

He printed out what he'd done that morning, put it in the folder, and walked past dozens of small, temporary offices till he found the one with a paper taped to the door: 'Susan Wu, WCC, please knock'. He did.

"Come in, Wufei."

He left the sterile corridors and impersonal decor of the wing full of provisional offices to step into a little haven. It lifted his spirits immediately, as it usually did.

Susan had not taken the notion of 'temporary’ office at face value. She'd brought in enough personal items to change it into an elegant Chinese study. In one corner stood a carved redwood screen, about chin-height to Wufei, hiding the tea area. There were framed scrolls of the precepts of Confucius on the walls, though he didn't think Susan was really an adept; they had probably been gifts. The desk was the bland original furnishing, but it had acquired jade statues for luck and fortune, a calligraphy set that was probably worth a fair amount, and several stacks of books and vids. A meditation chair and a sutra scroll, both reproduction Ming dynasty, decorated the final empty corner.

Susan was looking at him carefully. She'd already mentioned something yesterday.

"You look tired. Don't you ever sleep? You were here till ten last night, too. Doesn't your girlfriend mind?"

The last was teasing. She'd inquired about his love life the second day they'd worked together. Wufei had told her he was single - which was nearly almost entirely true. But she had chosen not to believe him and had declared he must be too shy to tell her about his girlfriend.

The fact that she was a tremendously intelligent and competent young woman, fiercely passionate about their investigation, was the only reason Wufei wasn't more annoyed about this.

Susan motioned him imperiously towards a chair. Politeness indicated he should stay standing while she made the tea, but she would have none of that.

"It's that shoulder, right? I know all about the great alloys they inject into the bone to repair it quickly, but whatever they say, it's still not natural and I'm sure your body is protesting. Your chi must be all out of whack. And you can't get a good night's sleep if your shoulder is aching. That's almost as bad as your neck. Did you do what I told you to?"

"No, I refuse to slip a block of wood beneath my pillow." Wufei had figured out fairly early on in their working relationship that Susan did not particularly mind him being grumpy and forthright. Which was fortunate.

"That L1 colleague of yours will surely tell you the same thing, if he knows anything about his own Japanese heritage. Only a properly rigid support will keep your upper body straight and free of aches." Tea cups clinked, followed by the sound of water being poured with a slight hiss. A delicate aroma filled the small office and Wufei sniffed appreciatively. Oolong, and a truly rich blend. Susan knew her tea.

"You know, acupuncture helps, too." Susan extended the cup, a delicate gray like the shell of certain bird eggs, smooth and hot beneath his fingers and palm as he accepted it. "I have a friend who can-"

"I'm not having someone stick needles in me, Susan."

"Mr Chang, that's an inaccurate and obscurantist remark and you know it. Acupuncture is an ancient science that works in complete harmony with-"

He tuned her out, sipping the tea. Susan - Shu Shen, originally - was space born, like him, from a big, metropolitan L5 colony a couple of hours away from his one-time home. But like many other colonists who'd migrated to earth, Susan had discovered her roots with a vengeance. It was her hobby, though that word didn't justify the extent of her enthusiasm. There was that and her work, which bore the brunt of the real fire of her soul, and there was nothing else. There were no framed photographs on the desk, no home address bar the small - temporary again - apartment nearby, nobody she mentioned in casual conversation.

Wufei nodded absently, not really listening to the description of the historical use of acupuncture to treat insomnia in princes of bygone dynasties. He was rather amazed Susan had the time to find these kinds of things out, she had enough work in her life for three different people already. She was an attorney for the courts in Strasbourg, though she would take off months at a time to work pro bono for the War Crimes Commission or other such organizations.

Susan was sitting primly in her chair, back straight, gulping the scalding tea to punctuate each argument. Her petite frame showed nothing of the enthusiasm she had for the subject. When he'd first met her, Wufei had thought her a placid twit and rather apathetic about their mission. Then she'd ‘welcomed him to the team’...and he'd been left with his mouth hanging open as she spent the next three hours, sitting in exactly that position, looking cool and collected, describing the process she'd followed to date on the case and her future plans which would, at a reasonable estimate, leave her working eighteen hour per day. He'd quickly realized that the calm, controlled appearance was a mask, a lawyer's tool. He could only guess at the passion for justice that burned beneath it.

Susan took a last sip of tea and shook back her shoulder length black hair, a sign she'd finished the presentation of her case to the court. Wufei, finding himself judge and jury to her opinion on acupuncture, said he'd think about it and opened the folder.

"The colonel's dead," he announced abruptly, getting on with business. Acupuncture? No way. "So's his aide, his first officer-"

"Let me guess." Susan couldn't quite hide the droop in her voice. "Space Fortress Barge?"

"Yes."

Susan's nostrils pinched. She never swore. She'd completed her barrister studies at an exceptionally young age and she'd been working the courtrooms for two years already. Presumably judges did not approve of the prosecuting attorney shouting 'Damn it!' during proceedings. She had too much poise from the top of her twenty two years for him to envision her doing that anyway.

"Well, we have other avenues to explore." Susan drew out her own folder. "I followed a few leads on the civilian and maintenance crew side last night, the people who authorized the departure of both task-forces towards A0206. Most of these people had nowhere near the clearance to be on Barge at the time Marquise decided to take a can opener to it."

"They'll have been in some other disaster," Wufei muttered. That got him a cool look. Susan did not approve of defeatism.

"Let's track them down and then I'll set up meetings with them." She pointedly ignored his remark. "How long are you still on sick leave?"

"Light duty. Another three weeks. Then I have a physical evaluation for combat readiness. But I can't stay on this case for too long, I have to help my partner, I've left him to cover our workload. We're short-staffed in our division as it is. Une said I could help you for two weeks total, and then she will assign someone else to assist the investigation."

"So we have one more week together. That should be plenty of time to find a few of these people. Great! Let's get to work."

 

 

The oxygen burnt out all at once, a glorious funereal pyre that burned brightly for a second before being spirited away by the vastness of space. Then there were only the pieces of A0206, shining like small stars, hurtling outwards to embrace eternity.

Wufei smiled. At last...

Thousands of times he'd been here. In memory, in dreams, in pain and regret. He always returned to this moment in time, again and again. Witnessed the destruction, helpless, howling with fury, choked with sadness...until tonight. Tonight, he felt only one thing.

Serenity.

Finally it had torn and ripped and chiseled away any part of him that could still care.

He was free.

He looked at the distant stars and their new, closer kin that had once been his home - but the word held no power over him now. He stretched in the narrow cockpit and simply enjoyed the absence of a pain so great, so ingrained, it had become a second skin. Everything was new and bright, it was as if he'd broken through a shell. The air from the A/C brushed his face gently, Nataku hummed and glowed brightly around him. There was a sensual pleasure to the smoothness of the metal touching his lower lip, cool at the first touch. Wufei smiled in contentment and pulled the trigger.

And sat up with a strangled grunt. It would have been a scream but his jaw had clenched with pain as the bullet tore through it.

His room was dark, bar a few shreds of light that filtered through his blinds. The bed beneath him felt less real than Nataku's cockpit had a minute ago. Something tepid touched his lip and he jerked reflexively before realizing it was a bead of sweat. He wiped it away absently and noticed that his hand was shaking.

Damn. That had been-

He froze as he stared down at his lap.

Wufei licked his lips, tasting sour sweat. His left hand dropped away from his face to his lap very slowly and grabbed the Luger by the barrel as if it were a live and vicious thing that shouldn't be startled into firing. His right hand cramped as the gun's grip left it. Moving still in that slow, anesthetized way, he turned and put the Luger back on the bedside table. He stared at his right hand for a minute. Finally it crept away, under the sheet, and he slid down to join it, his mind strangely numb. He lay staring at the ceiling for another minute. Then he slowly got up, slid from beneath the covers, took the Luger - still cautiously by the barrel - and put it away in the dresser on the far side of the room.

He lay back in bed out of force of habit, though he doubted he'd be able to sleep.

This was getting out of hand...The thought finally trickled down to his mind, slowly coming out from that numbness.

When Heero had first brought Wufei back to the safe-house over two weeks ago, he'd had trouble sleeping. With his injuries, that was to be expected. Sally had given him some painkillers and they'd helped a bit, for a few days. He had started to recover and sleep more soundly. Then he'd been assigned to this case last week, and the nightmares had started.

He was hardly a stranger to nightmares; he'd always had the expected batch of twisted fantasies and products of self-recrimination, the dregs of war and trauma, things he could shake off on waking. But the day he'd started working on this case, when he opened the folder on a personal history he'd thought he'd laid to rest, the dreams had been as immediate and as real as the events through which he'd lived. By day, he examined the actual threads of the schemes that had killed his Nataku and led to the destruction of his home. By night he relived them.

And more. If it had been only his colony's destruction and Nataku's death that haunted him, that would have already been more than enough. But it appeared that he'd opened a gate to every speck of uncertainty in his mind, breached every denial. The dreams ruptured every one of his barriers each time he closed his eyes. He dreamed of parts of the war that had nothing to do with his home or his wife. The Gundams, New Edwards, Treize, the other pilots, Heero, countless, countless murders, even some of the highlights of the worst cases he'd worked on since he'd joined the Preventers. And if that weren't enough...if that weren't enough, feelings and desires and unacknowledged fears about the present stewed alongside the phantoms of the past. And that made it, if at all possible, even worse. He'd been working on the case with Susan for a week now and hadn't gotten more than three or four hours of restful slumber a night in all that time. He was young, and one of the toughest people around, but even he was starting to feel the effects.

One more week to go. Then he'd be back to helping Heero. Unless Wufei requested to stay on the WCC case. Susan was probably expecting him to volunteer and stick with her. It was-...it was Justice, it was truth. It was torture.

Wufei turned and glared at the window blinds filtering the streetlight's luminescence outside, alternate stripes of black and yellow in the darkness.

He was stronger than this. This was nothing! He hated himself for feeling this upset over little figments of his imagination. Stupid! He resolutely dragged the sheets up to his chin and curled into the pillow, ignoring the faint ache in his shoulder. Now, he was going to go to sleep, and he was not going to sink into some kind of self-pitying pool of depression.

His palm tingled with the memory of his gun's grip. He ignored it.

 

 

Wufei dragged the last bit of stubborn pride from its hiding place and chained it to his stamina to force another set of sit-ups out of his flagging body.

Heero said nothing as Wufei lay back again with a gasp. But he didn't move away to do a set of his own either. He was frowning. Wufei closed his eyes, moving his arms gently to keep his muscles warm. Heero had probably noticed that his physical improvement had hit a plateau this past week. Yuy knew Wufei: knew his body, his movements, his limitations and abilities like he knew the exact specs of his favorite gun. He had to have noticed.

"You should stop working this case."

Wufei's eyes shot open. It wasn't what he'd expected. His partner looked annoyed.

"The case? The WCC investigation? But-"

"It takes up way too much of your time. You're not concentrating on getting better." Heero's voice was firm and left no room for compromise. "And it appears to be upsetting you."

Wufei's insides twisted under two very different emotions: cringing humiliation - ‘upset’, like he was some hysterical woman to be influenced by his emotions; and a shiver of warmth that Heero had noticed, cared enough to say something. He both feared and wanted his partner to ask him more details, get into the reasons why this was upsetting him, talk about it, bring it out into the open despite Wufei's embarrassment at being affected by something that was now dead and buried.

"I-"

"I was hoping you'd recuperate faster," Heero muttered, glaring at the punching bag in the corner. "This light duty is boring. And there's a lot to do out in the field."

Wufei winced. Heero wasn't looking at him so he didn't notice.

"I'll work out more," Wufei offered weakly, sitting up and grabbing a towel, a frail defense against Heero's disapproval.

"Yes, I guess you can try that." Heero still sounded annoyed. He'd been very tense these last few days, Wufei had observed. The lack of real action was obviously getting to him. "I want things to get back to normal."

"So do I," Wufei sighed. "I'm sorry this is inconveniencing you, Yuy. I know this is frustrating-"

"You can at least do something about that," Heero interrupted coolly as he turned back towards Wufei.

"Uh?"

"You could at least offer to do something about that."

Wufei stared at him blankly. "I...don't understand-"

Then he caught the look Heero was giving him, gaze moving slowly over his body. His mouth went dry. Why was Heero thinking about that? They had an unspoken agreement to postpone that kind of activity for when Wufei was fit again, as they had when Heero had been injured. It would be stupid to stress recuperating muscles by-

Wufei gasped as a hard body landed on his. The floor hit him in the shoulder blades. Heero pinned him, hard hands crushing his wrists. Looking down at him with hard eyes the color of arctic seas. Waiting.

Stopping his instinctive struggle, Wufei turned his head away in a sharp movement. This was Heero's prerogative. It was their arrangement. He said nothing as his partner twisted, levering Wufei's legs apart, and started to grind against him. Wufei tried to feel nothing, concentrating on the smell of wheat chaff and old engine oil that tickled his nose, alien to the dojo but somehow very familiar.

Heero's voice was broken by his rhythmic thrusts: "Don't-... go-... to sleep!"

Wufei started and blinked. "Wh-what?"

Heero was ten feet away, on the weight machine, a fluid continuous movement of metal and muscle. His words were punctuated by his breathing and the swish of the weights. "I said-... don't-... go to sleep-... on the floor-... " He set the bar back and breathed. "Walk around, you'll cramp up otherwise."

"R-right." Wufei sat up slowly. Shit! He'd been dreaming?! But-but what had been a dream and what-...Were they finished with tonight's training? Did they still have some sets to do? Was he supposed to be doing some of his solo exercises?

He blinked at a creak from the machine. Footsteps, coming near. Still mired in his dream, he flinched as Heero crouched at his side. His partner noticed the gesture, though fortunately misunderstood its meaning.

"Tired? Want to call it a night?"

"No," Wufei answered automatically, then cursed himself. That would have been an easy way out of the confusion.

He waited, tense. Heero waited too. Then the latter shifted a bit and frowned, puzzled. "Lay on your side. We're doing mobility exercises on your shoulder now."

"Oh, right." Wufei winced. Smooth. He lay on his side and stretched out his left arm. Even one of Heero's torture sessions - which did probably make his stiffened muscles and ligaments more limber after the ache had subsided - was preferable to having his partner ask him why he was acting so strangely. It had felt so real, down to the feel of Heero's body against his, and the bitterness of being used- Wufei fought back the memory. It was just a dream.

"Okay, force your arm up. Further." Heero's hands, which could probably rip Wufei's arm out of its joint like an overcooked chicken wing, assisted the movement. Though Wufei knew, intellectually, that Heero had a complete knowledge of anatomy and how much pressure to apply, he was still surprised every night that he still had some limbs left when he went to bed.

"I'm sorry." The words slipped out of their own volition, despite his best intentions. The nightmare kept replaying in his mind, acrid and humiliating. Wufei glared at the dojo floor. Heero had stopped the pressure on his arm, waiting for Wufei to explain, so he pretty much had to conclude. "This is boring for you. Light duty and- and taking care of me."

Heero looked down at him quizzically, releasing the arm to Wufei's slight relief. "It's unavoidable. You were injured. It's something to be expected in our line of work. I'm sure it won't be the last time one of us will need to recover and retrain."

"Yes, but-"

Heero gave him a heavy look. They'd been through this once or twice before during the first week of Wufei's convalescence, while Heero had taken care of his needs with clinical efficiency until the wounded man could walk again. Heero obviously considered the subject done to death already.

"I'm not bored," Heero added, after he put the glare away. "There are a lot of small jobs to finish, and Une is lacking reliable personnel with high security clearance. The hacking jobs alone require a specialist. It's not like she doesn't keep me busy." Heero gave Wufei a small half-smile, as if to share the joke: the idea of Une letting him relax for any length of time. It was true that Heero worked almost as many hours as Wufei. Then he would spend two more hours or more each day training and working out, and helping Wufei work on his injuries.

"I should be helping you with the workload." Guilt reared up and took a bite out of this new subject. That had been the original plan: they'd work on these small but essential jobs together. Heero shouldn't have to work thirteen hour days whilst on light duty, and then take care of Wufei as well.

Heero gave him another heavy look. "I'm hardly about to buckle under the pressure, Chang, I'm a lot tougher than you are." Wufei stiffened until he realized that had been taunting, not biting. Heero was expecting a verbal match, one of their usual tussles of put-downs and jibes. But Wufei didn't feel up to it. Heero waited for a comeback for a few seconds, then frowned.

"What you are doing, with the War Crimes Committee, is much more significant." Heero was serious now. "It's necessary. It's more important than what Une has me doing. And she knows it." Heero was silent for a few seconds, eyes looking inward. "It must never happen again," he finally whispered. 

Wufei found himself nodding glumly. Yes, whatever the cost to himself, the future generations must never know the kind of ugly war that had cost countless lives and almost murdered the Earth.

"It's not as if they have an urgent need for us out on the field, either. Things are still pretty quiet out there," Heero continued, breaking the heavy silence and grabbing Wufei's arm again. Wufei knew that was true too. Sam was keeping them updated. The Syndicate had gone completely to ground, and no-one had dared to step into the power vacuum so far.

Heero started applying pressure, lifting Wufei's arm straight out. "In fact, I spoke to Une today. She's going to see if she can rearrange my workload so I can work on some other projects. We need to overhaul Ops security again, now that we've finally gotten rid of the spies in our ranks. Hold your arm up. She'd like to see me organize this in the coming weeks. Sam wants my help with some things too. Une's trying to juggle it all. Push against my hand. She said - push harder - that this would allow you to continue to work with Advocate Wu for a few more weeks, until you are fit for regular duty again. Harder."

The feel of his muscles screaming in protest allowed Wufei to hide the new wince. His mind was as torn as his shoulder felt. On the one hand, he believed in what Susan and he were doing, and she did need the help of a good investigator with a high security clearance. On the other hand...Wufei took a deep breath around the ache in his shoulder.

On the other hand, he wanted the nightmares to stop.

 

 

The nightmares didn't stop. Days became fuzzy, mired in exhaustion, only the torturous images born of his own imagination standing out in clear definition. Meiran, the death of his colony, Heero, the war, his present life of cold duty, his past failures, countless murders, blood, pain, loss, humiliation...Every night, and occasionally during the day if he nodded off at his desk, his brain would find a new recipe in which to mix these bloodied ingredients and shove them down his throat.

Susan laughed. Wufei blinked and swore silently. Had he dozed off? The woman they were interviewing hadn't said anything that funny, surely.

"Eleanor, Eleanor, please. Let's not be so dramatic about all this." Susan smiled. It was nice. It was coyly understanding. It was a lie. Eleanor had been the space port manager on duty who had authorized the departure from her docking ring of an expeditionary force armed with pest-control products on its manifest and a recorded destination to an inhabited colony. If Eleanor had asked a few obvious questions, held up departure, simply followed standard procedures, the L5 colonial authorities might have had a chance to examine the order and lodge a protest with Septem's forces. But Eleanor had asked no questions. Susan wanted to know why.

Wufei looked at Eleanor, which was how she'd insisted they address her. She was a portly woman in her sixties, newly retired, her small suburban home still shiny and new. She was the kind to keep the plastic on the furniture for as long as she could. Her dress was business-like; it felt as if it spent its nights wrapped in a plastic sheathe, to keep it neat, new and lifeless, like a pressed flower.

He watched Susan work. Her calm shored his resolve to stay silent. It was hard; this woman they were facing had- but he kept his feelings buried. The WCC could issue subpoenas, but it preferred to obtain and record information voluntarily. Susan and Wufei couldn't go on to prosecute even if they wanted to: Eleanor would never have to face a court of law for what she'd done.

Looking at her, her thick cheeks wobbling as she huffed some more defensive words - not her job, mission pre-authorized, paperwork in order - he realized that maybe this was her day in court: forcing her to confront what she'd done for the first time. Maybe he'd be able to leave a few of his nightmares here, with her. She deserved her share as well.

Susan smiled again, relaxed. "Now, you said the signature was from-... ?"

"Colonel Wen. He was the Alliance officer in charge of-"

"Yes, yes, yes, but I'm sure he didn't sign it personally. They never do. Not cargo manifest. Not a destination route. Who - signed - it?" Susan was hoping for some information, other names, that might lead her and Wufei to someone who had not been killed in the destruction of Fortress Barge.

"I- I can't remember."

Susan looked surprised - no doubt or scorn visible though. Her voice was a polished tool, like a surgical instrument. "You can't remember one of your regular Alliance correspondents signing off on such a peculiar order?"

Eleanor paled, her small eyes shifted and quickly returned to Susan's face. She'd studiously avoided looking at Wufei from the start. He obviously intimidated her. And that was good. That was his job.

"Well..."

"Now, Eleanor. I've interviewed a few of your colleagues, they told me a lot about you." Eleanor looked alarmed and slightly angry. "They told me you're known for your excellent memory. And by your own admission you remember the incident-"

Wufei had glimpsed the passion Susan had for her job, her mission. He'd met a few of the other dedicated people who worked for the War Crimes Committee, sacrificing their time and their comfortable illusions about the human race to ensure that the truth was known and not forgotten. He admired them more than he could ever express. Susan had an intensity and focus that was skilfully hidden behind her relaxed exterior. Despite being faced with the worst humanity could come up with, she kept every fact in mind, her intellect tightening around her suspects like a noose. Not for the first time, Wufei reflected that she must be an excellent prosecuting attorney.

He watched without much surprise as Eleanor finally broke, and started to sob and spill out names and dates and apologies and prayers. They had no power over Eleanor. Theoretically she could have told them to fuck off instead of inviting them into her neat little home in Munich, and agreeing to this interview, and forcing herself to confront what she'd done, to have it recorded and preserved for the future as a reminder of the price of deliberately looking the other way. Susan and her calm confidence and absolute inability to take No for an answer were doing wonders in getting these confessions. Coupled, maybe, with the need to confess...Wufei checked the recording equipment again and glanced at his watch. They should be able to make it back to the Preventer's flitter in about an hour, and back to Brussels before ten tonight. Then tomorrow they would have more names, more leads to follow.

 

 

"All set?" Susan asked him cheerfully, strapping herself in to the flitter's co-pilot seat.

"Yes. Hold on."

"In a hurry to get back?" Susan purred as he hit a flight curve that would be more appropriate to Nataku than the poor flitter. "Don't worry, I'm sure your girl will be waiting for you."

Wufei rolled his eyes.

"When will we be back in Brussels?" Susan asked, grabbing the arm rests as he hit an aggressive turn.

"Soon. We just need to detour first, before leaving Munich."

"Oh yes, we have to sort that out before leaving, don't we."

"Of course." Wufei snorted and smiled as he slowed the flitter. His thumb flipped the safety off the firing switch of the twin machine guns. "You're buckled in, right?"

"Always when you're driving, Wufei."

"Right." The recoil made the flitter shudder in the sky. The small, pension-paid suburban house garnered a neat set of bullet holes in its plaster before the window exploded inward. Wufei imagined the glass crashing into the house, perforating the plastic-wrapped furniture. The noise was covered by the hum of the flitter and the ratchet-bang of the guns.

Eleanor ran screaming from her house, and froze at the sight of the flitter hovering above her.

"Why?! I told you everything you wanted to know!" she screamed, or that's probably what she said, then she disappeared in a burst of blood and flailing limbs. Wufei turned the flitter around, not particularly interested in seeing the result of the volley.

"Wufei?"

He jerked awake. "What?!"

"...They just gave us clearance to take off. Er, are you sure-..." Susan looked at him dubiously.

"I'm fine. I was just resting my eyes." Wufei uncurled his hand, one finger at a time, from the flitter's joystick - unadorned with a firing switch in real life - and answered flight control, who was grumbling at him for a response. He'd done pre-flight check - right? Yes, he had. They just had to taxi to the indicated runway and leave.

Susan was silent while they took off, circled once as their flight plan was acknowledged, and headed towards Brussels. Then she unbuckled her straps. "Tea?"

"There's a kettle on board?"

"Yes, I saw one in the bathroom."

"I hate to think what the water-"

"I have a bottle!" Susan chided as she got to her feet and made her way unsteadily to the back of the cockpit. "And it's eight o'clock! Even back in the eighteen hundreds pre-colony time, Wu Shangxian was very explicit about the benefits of drinking tea every two hours, particularly before a meal, to facilitate digestion and balance-"

"How do you do it?"

Susan glanced back in surprise as she was about to disappear into the troop transport section of the flitter. "What? Tea?"

"She will never be prosecuted. There will be no justice waiting for her. She will never be made to- to face what she did."

He glanced back. Susan was looking out the cockpit's side-window, eyes wide and blind. "Some might say she just was." It was the mask, the cool, unperturbed attorney.

"How can you stand asking her those questions so calmly? And not-..."

"Not tear into her with accusations? Wouldn't get us far." Susan shrugged, then stared, hard and cold, an inch above his head. "I focus on what's right, what is just," she murmured. "Being made to fully realize the extent of the crime is the greatest punishment, and true justice." She turned abruptly and left to make the tea without further explanation.

Wufei concentrated on flying the flitter. True justice. They'd left Eleanor staring blindly at her coffee table in her neat pension-paid house. He knew the look in her eyes. She was already starting to justify her actions to herself again. He hoped she failed.

 

 

A hand waved in front of him, cautiously out of reach. Wufei glanced up in surprise. "What?"

"Are you finished?" Heero asked, in a slow, neutral way that meant he'd probably asked the question several times already.

Wufei looked down at his plate. He'd eaten half of its contents and mushed up the rest with his sticks. Well, it was late, he had no appetite. He wasn't doing anything physical to justify eating as much as he usually did, either. Flying to Munich and back and spending the afternoon in a quiet suburban home didn't burn up half as many calories as the partner's usual activities. He'd used that argument on several occasions now, when Heero mentioned how little he was eating. Heero didn't comment this time, merely tossed the take-out in the bin and put the plates in the sink.

"Go to bed," Heero said over his shoulder. "We can skip training tonight."

"No," Wufei growled, surprised at his partner's unusual suggestion. Zoning out over a late dinner probably didn't make him look all that energetic, but Wufei would have to be a good deal more exhausted than this to put off training.

Heero said nothing as he started to wash the dishes. Wufei could tell, from the straight line of his shoulders, that he was going to object again, and was just looking for an argument that wouldn't lead to Wufei blowing up in his face. Again.

"I'm fine. If I do my exercises, I'll sleep better," Wufei lied, preempting whatever his partner was going to say.

Heero put down the sponge but didn't turn around.

Don't say anything-

Please... ask me...?

Don't. Don't go there.

I...need...you to-

Heero glanced at him. Wufei saw his jaw move. Then the blue eyes went, well, blank wasn't the right word, but the slight question that had hovered in them died, strangled by the silence, and Heero nodded at the plates. He had visibly decided to take what Wufei had said at face value and trust him to know his limits. Wufei went to change into his training gear, feeling the usual mix of relief and disappointment as the silence remained intact.

 

 

"I'm sorry." Heero looked like he was hating this conversation even more than Wufei, if that were possible.

"It happens. I understand." Wufei was distantly proud that his voice, his demeanor, and his entire being reflected nothing of the pain and confusion he was feeling. Even Heero couldn't read him if Wufei didn't want him to. He was very good at that.

"I-... " Heero hesitated. Still unable to find words to express what he felt, at least not in this sort of situation.

"Yuy, I understand. Go. She's waiting."

Heero looked troubled, but started to turn.

"You'll be all right?"

"I'll be fine," Wufei lied with a slight sneer as if the very suggestion was an insult.

Heero nodded, accepting what Wufei said at face value, as he always did. And why not? Heero didn't lie about his feelings, didn't say one thing and mean another. Heero didn't talk about them much at all. He followed them instead. He acted upon them, instead of hiding them away and letting them fester.

Wufei managed a smile at Meiran who was watching him anxiously. He nodded at her and turned away, but he couldn't help glancing back. She'd grabbed Heero's hand and was giving him that big grin of hers. Heero was _almost_ smiling back, Wufei noted with a small inner snort that was strangely not all that bitter. There was a warmth in his partner's eyes he'd never seen there before.

Wufei quickly walked away, and Meiran dragged Heero in the opposite direction, talking excitedly about this apartment she'd seen, a small place near Preventer HQ, very practical, okay, just a small, temporary place but it should be okay for the two of them, and Heero could get to work easily-

Soon, Wufei was alone.

When he finally clawed himself out of the dream and the dazed depression that clung to it, it was not quite five in the morning. Wufei lay huddled in the sheets, too hot, sweating, but he couldn't bear to not have something around him right now. The bed seemed to be three times its original size, and Heero's room, where his partner was sleeping, couldn't be farther away if it were on one of the far side of the moon.

 

 

"So, Mr. Evans, you do admit to having understood that the order to commit a generalized massacre was intentional-"

"I deny that!" Evans spoke harshly, glaring at his hands clasped on the desk.

Susan drew herself up to her full height. She even produced a few more inches from somewhere which Wufei was at a loss to explain.

It was an arduous process to issue a subpoena on one of the WCC's suspects. But when that happened, Susan was truly in her element. The Prosecuting Attorney stared at Evans, a long cool look that made the man fully understand that she could see right through him, and was only dragging the truth from him for formality's sake.

Evans had commanded the escort of the task-force that had threatened to destroy A0206 if they didn't surrender the Gundam Altron. He was a tough man, used to ordering hundred of soldiers around. His gaze dropped back to the table nonetheless, avoiding Susan's eyes.

"My orders were to accompany and protect the mobile suit task-force-"

"But you were the highest ranking officer on the field." Susan's voice was cool, professional. Intransigent. "You do know that you are responsible for your subordinates' orders and behavior in combat?"

"I-"

"You do _know_ the rules of engagement, don't you, Mr. Evans?"

"Of cou-"

"And you were Lieutenant Karzowitz's superior?"

"Yes-"

"And you were aware of Lieutenant Karzowitz's orders to-"

"Those damn colonists destroyed themselves!"

"Yes." Susan's voice was completely devoid of emotion. The voice of Justice. "But if they hadn't...what were Lieutenant Karzowitz's orders?"

Evans was breathing heavily, his face filled with red blotches. He was wearing his old uniform, but the army he belonged to no longer existed. Susan had been calling him 'Mr. Evans' from the start.

"I...I want to see a lawyer."

"Then you're in luck," Susan purred. "I am an excellent lawyer."

Evan's went very red and opened his mouth, but his eyes flickered - as they had on a very regular basis - to Wufei in his Preventer uniform. The full legalities of what Preventers could or couldn't do was fully understood by ESUN and a handful of lawyers, but to the man in the street, they were a mythical force, headed by the implacable Lady Une, who could hold you and interrogate you without legal council if you posed a threat to peace. This mandate didn't apply to Evans, but he'd apparently not realized that. Possibly the look he'd been getting from Wufei, a look of furious accusation the L5 native hadn't bothered to hide this time, had removed Evans' ability to consider finer legal matters.

"Let's go over this again," Susan murmured, as if she could repeat all of this over and over again until they all died of old age. "On the 20th of November 195 AC, you, then Lieutenant-commander Harold Anthony Evans of Romefeller's military forces, were the commanding officer of the task-force comprised of MS unit 17 and NU 342, en route to colony A0206-"

Master Li read out the full accusation in a flat voice:"-with the intention of destroying better men than yourself. You laid claim to ideals that were not your own. You laid claim to honor that you merely inherited from your family. You failed repeatedly in your attempt to apply Justice. You, who always thought that history was better left to forces beyond your control because you couldn't face being a part of it, you destroyed those who, for right or wrong, had true ideals, true beliefs. You-"

"No!" Wufei shouted.

"No?" Master Li stared at him as if ultimately disappointed. "Has it come to this, Wufei? Won't you even admit to it?"

"No! I-...I did my best. I fought with-with honor. I-"

"Will the lawyer for the defense rise?" Master Li sounded testy, visibly tired of speaking to a young boy who wouldn't even admit to his own faults.

Wufei, staring at his hands clasped on the table, felt a movement besides him. A chair scraped back.

"Does he actually understand the crimes he's committed?" Master Li had visibly decided to dispense with the formal language of the court and get down to brass tacks. This was a military tribunal, it was his prerogative. "To wit - and to summarize - the destruction of countless lives, people who fought against him out of beliefs and ideals? And, the principal accusation: aiding and abetting the deaths of Meiran Long, a.k.a Nataku, and General Treize Khushrenada, officer in chief of Earth's Alliance forces at the time of his death?"

Wufei wanted to shout, to rail, to cry out against the accusation. His mouth opened, but only a strangled moan came out. He turned with desperate eyes towards his defense.

It was his father.

Sad, pitying eyes rested on him, and his defense squared his shoulders. "My son pleads guilty, Master, and throws himself on the leniency of this court."

"No," Wufei croaked into his pillow.

His muscles were cramping and his throat was so dry the denial had been almost silent. Thank the gods. If he woke Heero up one more time-...the fuss that would follow would be as terrible as the nightmare that preceded it, he was sure. Wufei listened distractedly, trying to hear, over the erratic pounding of his own heart, if he'd made any noise earlier, if his partner's door was about to open, if Heero was about to charge in here this time, instead of stopping with his hand on the doorknob-

If Heero was going to come in here and offer some comfort...

If Heero was going to come in and demand to know why his partner was coming apart at the seams, question Wufei's ability to handle future missions...

Wufei slowly sat up, clasped his knees and let his head sink onto them. His breath was coming quick and fast, like whispered sobs, but his eyes were dry as he screwed them shut and fought for composure.

Shit. Which parts had been the dream? Susan...Evans...the accusation...had that actually happened-...?

He uncurled himself and sat up straight, letting himself slip into a wobbly calm. Breathe. Relax. Relax, dammit, he growled at his back and shoulders that were tight with distress. Finally his body complied.

He remembered Evans. Yes, they _had_ interviewed him. As sleep and the last wisps of the nightmare left him, memory returned. Somewhat. He remembered the end of that interview: Evans' statement, not as good as Susan had wanted, but some important details. Wufei could recall it, but it was strangely blurred. The dream had felt more real.

That had happened two days ago. Last night- his muscles clenched and he forced them to relax. Last night he'd had the same dream, and he'd not been able to wake himself up during the nightmare, he'd suffered through the entire court proceedings. He'd heard every accusation leveled at him in detail. They'd produced crime-scene photographs - a shudder snaked up his spine - they'd brought forth witnesses...

Wufei glanced at his watch. Four thirty in the morning.

Slowly, his hands tightened where they rested on his knees until they formed fists.

Exhaustion ate at him, but he was _damned_ if he was going back to sleep. Oh no, he wasn't going to let this one pass unchallenged!

He would meditate. He'd faced these demons before. He wasn't proud of his attitude when he'd first met Meiran, and yes, he'd made mistakes during the war, and he'd not always thoroughly thought through what he was fighting for, and why. He'd been beaten by Treize, captured, had to join forces with others...but he'd also fought for what was right and with honor, and he'd never compromised himself. The ideals of Justice, the emblem Meiran had bequeathed to him, he had changed it and made it his own. What had happened to Treize at the end had been the confrontation of two sets of ideals, and both the general and Wufei had been the loser, or maybe the winner; but either way they'd both been there by choice.

This time, he was not going to run away. If his demons wanted to drag him into a formal court and stand up to his own accusations, he'd face them.

Time to settle this once and for all.


	32. Breaking Storm, Part II

"Enough shovels of earth -- a mountain. Enough pails of water -- a river."  
\---Chinese Proverb

The walls of Wufei's room took on a red tint as the sun went down. It was the first time in two weeks he'd actually been back at the house for sunset. He stared at the opposite wall blankly. He was exhausted. But that was becoming something of a habit these days. Hell, he was getting so used to functioning with minimal resources and half of his brain stunned by fatigue, that if he actually had a full night's sleep it'd probably kill him.

Today had been a good day. He'd meditated for two hours that morning after that dream about his sins being put on trial. His soul was now much more serene. He didn't think he would have that nightmare again. Then he'd gone into work, and he and Susan had officially entered Evan's reluctant testimonial into the WCC official records, along with others. And Susan had found new leads. Lieutenant Karzowitz was dead, as was his entire unit; Wufei had seen to that, after Master Li had performed the last valiant act of sacrifice for his sake. But there were still many people to interview, many little cogs left in the machine that had killed his wife and his home.

They'd interrogated one of them today. Susan had obtained another subpoena, and boy had she used it. Their suspect had been a captain at the time. He had authorized Evans' departure, bypassing the military L5 Colony Council who should have been appraised of this order to move on one of their own. Susan hammered into him hour after hour, until the truth was laid out, bare and stinking. This armchair warrior had been hoping for the destruction of the Gundam that he considered a personal insult to OZ's occupation of space. He hadn't cared about the civilians that were, maybe unknowingly, hiding someone who had fought against Treize's supremacy.

At the end, the man was whispering over and over again that it had been for Treize, all for Treize...despite knowing the general had admired the Gundam pilots. Susan had reminded him of that fact, like one twisted a dagger into a man's gut before disemboweling him. Wufei was looking straight into the man's eyes when the core of his soul broke. 

Oh, that one-time captain walked away afterwards, nothing but his words had been caught and imprisoned in the WCC's war crime's archives. But his mind had tumbled into an oubliette far more dismal than the highest security prison. And it would never leave. Yes, today had been a good day.

Wufei nodded firmly. He was sitting on his meditation mat in the middle of his small, sober room. Not that he felt like meditating. But his exhaustion, his annoying habit of zoning out over dinner, his lack of appetite, and the fact that Heero seemed to have guessed he'd barely slept again last night...all this would have inevitably led to the same questions again.

They weren't the questions that Wufei dreaded - and that a small, weak part of him secretly wanted, though he despised and denied that bit until it slunk away again. No, Heero seemed completely oblivious to the effect this investigation was having on Wufei. Not surprisingly. Wufei knew that Heero felt the guilt, regret, pain they'd all inherited from the war, but he kept it in its place, he mastered his own weakening emotions. In a way, it was flattering that Heero automatically assumed Wufei had the same control and equanimity. It was a balm to Wufei's tired mind.

The problem was that Heero could still see Wufei's physical condition, his exhaustion, his obvious lack of focus, and was assuming the problem was a lot more straightforward than the demons roaming through Wufei's skull. Wufei felt his hackles rise slightly and he scowled at the red-tinted wall. Apparently, in Heero's eyes, Wufei's troubles had a much more down-to-earth source: Wufei was a wimp who couldn't handle the strenuous retraining Heero was putting him through.

Wufei couldn't find any other way to interpret Heero's searching questions; he frequently asked Wufei how his injuries were, especially when he came down in the morning to find Wufei already up and staring dispiritedly at breakfast. How serious is the pain? Do you want to go talk to Sally about it? Are you sleeping all right? Maybe we shouldn't train tonight, maybe you should take some medication and try to rest? Do you know that regular sleep and nutrition are necessary for prompt recovery? Heero didn't say much but what he was saying was getting pretty repetitious. Wufei had stopped listening. Otherwise he'd just snap at Heero that the pain was nothing he couldn't handle, and that his partner should get off his back.

But in a way he was reassured. If Heero believed his physical condition was caused by his injuries, Wufei was not about to correct him.

He would beat this. His part in the investigation should last another two weeks or so, and then he'd have the physical with Sally and be fit for duty again. In the meantime, he wanted to beat this!

Heero was giving Wufei his space, not pressing his questions when Wufei told him to back off. Allowing Wufei to beat this on his own. Only a true partner, who respected his strength, would do that. Not for the first time, Wufei reflected that the arrangement and the partnership on which it was based was a privilege for a warrior like himself. Two samurai, living on the edge of a blade with no affection or tenderness needed or wanted. Yes, it was perfect.

 

 

Wufei sat up in bed with a strangled gasp.

He tried to catch the noise even as it left his mouth, but there wasn't much point. The way he'd jerked the bed would have woken Heero anyway.

"...What? 'nother nightmare?" Heero mumbled into his pillow.

"I was living in a box!" The words tumbled out of Wufei's mouth regardless of common sense.

Heero was motionless for two seconds, then slowly lifted a sleepy face away from the pillow. "...You what?"

"I-...never mind." Wufei shook his head and sat there, thrumming, his body caught in indecision while his mind stayed stuck in the oh-so-detailed nightmare that had snared him. It had felt so real! Pain. Loneliness. A way of life like the edge of a blade. Cutting him mercilessly.

"Was a dream. Go t'sleep." Heero's head sank back into the pillow.

"I know," Wufei muttered. He lay back down again, as relaxed as a board.

He almost yelped as a strong arm suddenly grabbed him by the waist and dragged him bodily into the little nest of warmth that was Heero's spot under the covers.

"You were living in a box." Heero's voice was still muffled by his pillow and sleep, but it sounded more focused. "What, you were homeless?"

"I-" Wufei was about to order him to ignore it but then suddenly a light of recognition flipped on. "It was your study, actually, the room down the hall. I- it's so square, and it only had my dresser and a bed and my meditation mat in it, so it looked like a box. Um." It sounded even more stupid out loud.

"My study."

"...Well-"

"You were living in my study."

"...Yeah."

"Wufei...for starters, your meditation mat is where you left it, rolled up by the door, I trip over it almost every morning-"

"You do not."

"-and your dresser is over there, opposite the door. The only thing in my study is my desk."

"I didn't say it made any sense," Wufei snapped - his eyes going over the big room they shared, just in case, and feeling himself reassured to find it all the same as when he'd gone to bed with Heero earlier. "I just...I was living in your study, and you were living in this room, alone, you had your desk in here. And we-" Wufei stopped and licked his lips.

There were a few moments of silence. Then Heero muttered: "Yes? We what?" The words whispered against Wufei's shoulder, just above the line of his tee-shirt.

"We weren't talking. Same as when we hooked up, during the war. I-...I was investigating the destruction of my colony." The arm around his waist suddenly tightened, a firm comforting pressure. "And you said-...actually, I really needed-..." Wufei cleared his throat. "It was just a nightmare."

"What did I say?" Heero's voice was now fully awake and had that persistent quality that told Wufei he might as well spit it out or forget about having any more sleep tonight.

"You weren't saying anything. And neither was I." Wufei forbade his voice to shake, threatening it with dire retribution if it dared to show such a weakness.

"We weren't saying the stuff that mattered," Heero interpreted. It wasn't a question.

"...You kept mentioning my injuries. I'd been hurt in a car accident, chasing down a suspect. You were asking me if they were much of a problem, if they were stopping me from sleeping properly, if I needed-"

"But you know -"

"Yes, I know that's Heero for 'Are you hurting inside, do you want my help?' but-... it was like during the war. You didn't know yourself what you were asking, and I didn't know either. I just assumed you were questioning my worth as your partner- it's stupid, I know. That's all. It-..." Wufei's mouth twisted. He hated this, but he had to be honest and say it. It was part of their arrangement. "It hurt. And I didn't know how to ask you for-...I didn't want you to pity me, or appear as if I was begging for your help-"

"That's Wufei for 'I'm being a stubborn ass'," Heero mumbled. "I got used to that during the war too."

Wufei opened his mouth, but he decided he didn't want to argue, not now. The arm tightened once around him, as if understanding that. Heero's voice was soft in his ear. "It was just a nightmare. We each have our share. Go to sleep. It's three in the morning."

"Sorry," Wufei apologized stiffly.

"Hn." Heero could now get a lot of nuance and exasperation into that one little grunt. "Don't you start that again. Go to sleep." The arm stayed around his waist like an anchor. Wufei felt like saying something; he knew Heero would only be able to doze lightly if they were actually touching each other instead of sleeping each on their side of the big bed. But Wufei knew what was being offered, freely and without any kind of hidden intentions. And he knew he'd dishonor himself more by refusing than by accepting. His own arm covered Heero's as it lay over his waist, and he squeezed it lightly, and closed his eyes. Warm breath caressed his neck, slow and regular, and a thumb on his ribs started a gentle back-and-forth rub that soothed him. He actually felt like he might get back to sleep tonight. As long as Heero didn't start to drool against his shoulder.

Wufei opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling of his small room, striped in yellow by the streetlights shining through the blinds. He was alone, in his own bed. Of course. His arm lay loosely across his waist, holding on to nothing, and his shoulder tingled as with residual warmth.

At least it wasn't one of those violent, painful nightmares, he told himself. Yeah, it could have been worse, he thought, as his soul screamed and screamed. He stared at the ceiling, willing himself to not think, not remember, not feel. Not to believe. He couldn't afford to believe...

By five in the morning, he was approximately successful. He got up and went to work.

 

 

"Push."

Wufei strained, trying to move - hell, nudge even - the steel trap that was Heero's arm restraining his right leg.

"Again."

A lesser man would have whimpered. Wufei just bit his lip and focused, ignored the fatigue, the ache. Heero's arm moved an inch.

"Good. Release."

Wufei put his leg down slowly, as if his muscles were not aching and tired, as if he had tons of reserves left. The partners had argued less than an hour ago whether Wufei should work out tonight. Heero had heard him come down the stairs early that morning, after that nightmare Wufei was studiously not thinking about at all, no, not even a little bit. His partner had wanted him to get an early night, but Wufei had shown him just how stubborn and cranky he could be when tired out.

His fatigue made it harder for him to read his partner's body language. Their near-telepathic ability to communicate worked best on the battle-field anyway, not in a more domestic context. But Wufei had noticed Heero's scowl, his distant expression and the way he occasionally clenched his jaw. Wufei felt that his partner was trying to find the words to say something. Normally, if Heero had anything on his mind, he came right out and said it, whatever it was. But living with Wufei these past few weeks had forced him to learn diplomacy as a survival skill.

"Chang, I've been thinking."

Here it comes.

"So that's what those vapor trails were," Wufei snipped automatically, brain turning over quickly, looking for a neutral way to once more explain his exhaustion, his physical and mental degradation this past week. Blame it on his injuries again. That was the only option.

His jibe got him a glare. Score: Chang, he thought, without pleasure.

"If you and Susan Wu need it, I think I can help you with your WCC case."

Wufei's movements faltered - he'd been doing small sit-ups to keep his muscles warm. And also to discourage any disparaging remark about his fitness levels. "Help?" His voice had been a bit strangled but he was breathing hard, so it wasn't too apparent.

Please, I need-...I need-...Despite his best resolve, the dream he'd had last night trembled in his soul.

"Yes." Heero sat back on his haunches and nodded firmly. "You only have two weeks left with her and you still have a lot of ground to cover." Everything in Heero's voice, his stance, his eyes, expressed an absolute certainty that Wufei would pass the physical exam in two weeks without the slightest problem. Wufei felt a trickle of warmth in the chest area. He'd been so wound up, thinking that Heero was about to criticize his physical condition, that this simple faith in his capabilities went straight through every one of his barriers.

"Yes, we're going to be very busy," Wufei admitted, forcing his voice to stay neutral. "We have new leads to explore." We have more murderers to see. More people who helped - by pushing paper, or looking the other way, or following orders - murder first my wife, then later my home. And we can do nothing to them. It's as if I'm carrying the weight of their confessions on my back, unable to put it down. I could really...really use someone strong at my side...to help...

"Une has assigned me to some one and two-day missions, Syndicate crackdowns throughout Europe," Heero explained. "I'm to assist Sam's people. I'll give you advanced warning of my destinations, and you can ask Miss Wu if there are any leads she needs to follow in those locations. I could do the groundwork for you. Save you time on trips."

Wufei stared at the ceiling of the main room, far up and slightly grayed with old traces of machine-shop grime. Then he stood up swiftly and grabbed his towel.

"Thank you. I will relay your offer to Susan," he answered without turning around. He wiped his face and headed towards the stairs.

"Chang?"

"You were right, I am tired. I'll go to bed. Thank you for the workout."

He didn't think Heero said anything in return. Wufei walked up the stairs, locked the bathroom door, stripped on automatic, turned the water on by feel, stepped into the shower and leaned his head against the yellowy plastic sides.

"What did you expect, you weak...pathetic...fool." So not only was Heero not going to be by his side, he'd be gone for days on end too. Doing some dangerous work, by the sound of it. While Wufei rotted in Brussels, caught in snares from his own mind.

This just got better and better. To make things worse, he'd probably vexed Heero back there by walking off like that. That is, someone normal would have been vexed. He wasn't sure Heero had it in him. But Heero's offer had been generous; to take time off from his own duties to run around after Susan's leads.

Wufei passed a hand absently through wet hair, rubbed his neck. This shouldn't bother him. He was used to Heero's way of thinking now. But the fatigue was eating away at his mind, and his barriers were crumbling. Only exhaustion was stopping him from panicking too much about this.

He almost laughed, a slightly hysterical gasp that blew the shower water from his lips. Wow, he was going to have some interesting nightmares tonight!

 

 

Wufei opened the workshop's door and limped inside. He was tired, he was sore, he was cross. This kind of mood should come with a dangerous weather warning across all channels.

"I'll get the tea," his partner stated after one look at him.

"Thanks." He took off his holster, stuck it on top of the gun cabinet instead of in it - he shrugged off the disapproving stare pinning him through the shoulder blades - and collapsed onto the couch, his eyes closing by themselves.

"What happened?"

"Evans," Wufei grunted. "He's hired a lawyer to have his interview removed from the WCC archive."

"He wants to remove a freely-made testimonial from a historical Human Rights endeavor even though his name will never appear in their records?"

Wufei nodded. "Susan thinks he might actually succeed if-"

"But that's not fair!"

Wufei felt his lips twitch. Even after the kind of day he'd had, it felt good to be home. "Well, I'll just tell him to quit it because my wife thinks it's not fair, shall I?"

Meiran exploded right on cue. "We're both in uniform, Chang! When we're Preventers, I'm your partner, not your spouse!"

"Whatever you say, dear," Wufei murmured. He snuck a glance at her and decided he should stop now, or he'd be getting that tea in his lap and not in a cup.

He closed his eyes again on the grumbles coming from the kitchen area. So tired...Damn nightmares...Damn investigation...Damn car accident that had left Meiran to cover the partners' regular duties and left him alone to deal with all these criminals he could never bring to justice...At least his leg and shoulder were feeling a bit better now.

"Here." Meiran slipped the cup between his fingers, then went to stand behind the couch and rubbed his shoulders, working gingerly with the healing one.

"Wufei, we should take a holiday after you're done with the WCC case," Meiran declared with her usual abruptness.

"A holiday?" Wufei's eyes opened, and he tilted his head back to get an upside-down view of his wife's face.

"Yes. We're due! You'll have time to finish healing, and...we could do with the rest."

"That sounds like a good idea." Wufei wasn't going to raise any objections! He knew his wife was working long, stressful hours to cope with their cumulative workload. He was surprised by the suggestion, one he'd been ready to make himself for her sake. Not like his Nataku to give herself a break. But he wasn't about to complain! That saved him a few hours of cajoling and arguments.

"After you finish helping Susan. Right? That'll be in less than two week's time. If she lets you go, that is!"

Wufei snuck another glance at Meiran. He thought the grin looked a bit venomous, and he smiled. Despite her insistence that they were partners first and man and wife second, Meiran had been, well, not jealous, of course, but somewhat _unenthusiastic_ about all the time he spent with a bright, beautiful young woman like Susan.

As if...

Susan was intelligent, she was pretty enough. She was also entirely obsessed by her mission. She never asked Wufei any private question, beyond teasing him a bit about Meiran. Wufei knew, without being overly bothered about it, that Susan didn't care about him as a person at all. Her soul burned with a passion for justice that was too busy consuming the enemy it pursued to even think about such trivial matters. In fact, it was frighteningly similar to the firestorm that had been Wufei's own soul during the war. They were too similar, hiding an intransigent view of the world like the edge of a blade, behind a mask of cool uncaring. They both had a soul that could cut down anything in their path in the name of an ideal they refused to see as layered and complex.

No, Wufei wasn't at risk of falling for Susan. He had his own bright flame, one that was warm and wise beyond her years, compassion and faith tempering the fire. No, Nataku had nothing to fear.

"Don't worry, Susan doesn't really care who helps her. And I lined up another partner for her already, one she should have no complaints about."

"Oh?"

"Heero." His friend had taken some persuading, but-

"Heero Yuy?! Oh that's just perfect!" Meiran laughed. "Definitely someone who can keep up with her! Excellent! Does that mean I can go ahead and book tickets? Susan will definitely let you escape?"

Wufei nodded and sipped his tea.

The fingers squeezed his shoulders enthusiastically.

"Good! We can go to China! Grandma will be there for a Long family reunion!"

Wufei choked. "Wh-wh-"

"I haven't seen her in ages!"

"Five months!" Wufei protested weakly, still sputtering tea.

"Well, that's ages! I grew up with her, after all. And she likes you." The fingers on his shoulder were becoming a lot less gentle.

"Yes, but-"

"But what?!"

Wufei made a face. "She keeps dragging me off to one side by the ear and asking me when I'll persuade you to give up this dangerous job, find a proper home - " he gestured at the converted workshop around them, which was practical and which they both quite liked, " - and settle down on L5 and have babies."

"Grandma's old-fashioned," Meiran said with indulgence. Wufei wished she had a tenth that much patience with him when he cautiously suggested she take fewer risks at work. "But her heart's in the right place. Just ignore her."

A memory of a wrinkled face, beady eyes like SMG muzzles, a tongue sharper than his sword, and claw-like fingers stabbing at his midriff, flashed through Wufei's mind. 'Just ignoring her' was definitely not an option; they wouldn't even find his body. Wufei thought, not for the first time, that if Meiran became more like her grandmother as she got older, he'd be better off dying young.

But his wife was tired these days. She'd been working so hard. Not surprisingly. She was just so ardent in everything she did. She never kept any reserves for herself. Even putting up with Grandma Long would be worth it if it allowed Nataku a break and let her visit those relatives that had escaped their colony's destruction.

"Very well," he sighed, and was rewarded with an enthusiastic hug. That showed how much this meant to her; normally she accepted his rare capitulations as if they were her due.

"Go and take a nap, husband. I'll go pick up some take-out in about an hour, and then we can train, okay?" She gave him a warm smile, took the empty cup from his fingers and shooed him away.

Wufei stretched as he woke from his nap. He lay there in peace for a few seconds, and then opened his eyes slowly. 

What-...it was night time! He sat up abruptly. Meiran shouldn't have let him sleep that long! What-

Then he remembered that his wife had been dead for over three years now.

Wufei slumped back into the pillow and stared at the ceiling, looking warily for the pain and distress lurking in his soul.

He found none.

His dream had seemed so real. They all did these days, more real than the waking world. In this instance, he really had been with his wife. He remembered her vivacity, her tenacity, her relentless passion for so many things.

Wufei found himself smiling. He should feel terrible that she was dead, and he did. Though he hadn't loved her, he'd respected her immensely, once he'd let himself. And he'd let her die. There should be so much guilt. But...

But now that he'd seen her again, he didn't think Nataku would want him to torture himself over her fate. She would consider it pathetic, an inappropriate tribute to the way she'd lived her life. Hell, she'd be downright furious. Wufei crossed his arms behind his head and gazed up at the pattern of lines on the ceiling, yellow street lights splashing through the blinds, a very familiar scene he was seeing night after night since this bloody WCC investigation started

Nataku... .

He didn't think he'd have any more nightmares about her...In fact, he was sure of it. The bright, vital woman she'd grown up to be in his dream might even protect him from some of the nightmares that were stalking him. He thought she would like that. He smiled gently at the ceiling.

Thank you...wife.

Yawning, Wufei rolled over, pleasantly tired for a change, instead of harassed by exhaustion that left him too weary to sleep properly. No, tonight he'd sleep okay. 

He'd barely dropped off when the cell phone rang.

He pinched himself violently, just to be on the safe side. No, apparently this wasn't a nightmare. Well, not in the literal sense. Goddamn it, if this wasn't a question of the planet's imminent destruction-

//Wufei? I'm sorry to wake you.// The voice didn't sound all that sorry though. It was said like a formality.

"Susan?" Wufei tried not to growl. It was dishonorable to bite a woman's head off, and besides, she was a damn good lawyer, and she would retaliate.

//We have a problem.//

"Evans?" the name was out before he could stop himself. Shit! Had he dreamed that or had it really happened?!

//Evans?// From Susan's puzzled tone, he'd screwed up. Evans hiring a lawyer to get his testimony revoked had been only part of his dream. Fortunately Susan had bigger concerns than her aide acting odd. //I was contacted by commissioner Alderbruck. Wufei, someone's trying to close this case.//

"Close it." Wufei stared blankly at the far wall. No, it was too hard to even think about this in his present state of fatigue.

//Yes. They want it closed as a non-event, because the colony self-destructed. And yes, I brought up the biochem weapons question but- Wufei, I think we found a rat.//

"Rat."

//How awake are you?! I think someone high up is trying to get this investigation squashed.//

"But...why? This is not a criminal proceeding-"

//I don't know. But we're going to find out. Alderbruck, bless his soul, is fighting this tooth and nail. He'll give us some time, let us gather some ammo. In the meantime, I need you to help me. We have to find out what's going on and counter it before they shut us down!//

Wufei glanced at his watch. Just past three. Way to go. "I'll be in the office in- I need to call a cab, and they take forever to come out here, if they come out here at all, I-"

Damn, he'd never get in. Looked like he only had one option, and that would only be available if the phone ringing hadn't woken Heero up.

//Wufei?//

"I'll be twenty minutes, give or take," he whispered. Okay, so his shoulder and knee were still a bit stiff, but he could ride his bike. At least, well enough to not crash and that was surely the most important criteria.

Which wouldn't stop him from creeping down the stairs and inching the garage door open, he knew. Heero had declared himself Wufei's physiotherapist and it kind of stood as a standing order that Wufei wouldn't try anything physical without permission to do so. In fact, Heero insisted on driving him to the bus-stop or all the way to HQ these days. That was due to the fact that Wufei kept blaming his sleepless nights on his injuries. Heero was probably concerned about his knee. Wufei should have known that lie would come back to haunt him.

Heero would no doubt give him a glare when Wufei rode back on the bike tomorrow; scowl number sixteen, the one reserved for insufferable fools.

Still not as bad as Meiran's grandmother, Wufei thought with a shrug as he went down the stairs as stealthily as any Shinigami.

 

 

Wufei watched Susan with something like curiosity. His own fury and distress were blanketed by exhaustion. He'd really, really not needed an all-but-sleepless night on top of everything else that had happened these last two and a half weeks.

In addition to the numbing fatigue, Wufei already had the experience of being betrayed by politicians; this was kind of par for the course. Susan, by contrast, was used to the rigid proceedings of the law, as intransigent as her own righteous obsession for justice. He watched the lawyer tiredly, to see if that fine mask would finally crack.

Susan was making tea for them. She was half hidden behind the fancy carved wooden screen, but he could still see that her hands were shaking while she filled the kettle with bottled water. She was damned tired herself, he knew that, working all hours on the case, but he doubted it was fatigue that put that tremor in her hands.

"Well, now we know where the interference is coming from," Wufei finally said, simply because he thought that if she didn't explode soon and start shouting and swearing, she'd choke.

"Yes." Still the lawyer's voice. Still so cold and measured.

"Who knew Colonel Wen's family were so devoted, that they wouldn't want his memory tainted by any hint of something as uncivil as a crime against humanity?" Wufei sneered, trying to reignite his own indignation. It was there, prowling around at the bottom of his gut, twisting it, but his mind was too foggy to fully comprehend that some- some blue-blooded military family, talking to this and that member of ESUN at a garden party somewhere, were going to throw away so much work and pain on Susan's part. All those nightmares, for nothing. It just...it didn't seem to want to make sense.

"...No justice..."

He glanced up. Susan's back was slumped. She was staring at the two steaming cups.

"No justice...laws cannot-...cannot force the guilty to confront-" she bit her lip. He had the feeling she'd just remembered he was in the room. He turned in his chair to face the desk again, let her gather herself in private.

Finally a cup was placed in front of him. Wufei started a bit, he'd half dozed off with his eyes open.

Susan-the-lawyer was back. Cool, relaxed, confident.

"Drink up! That's my father's favorite: best reserve of the Yulien Green Mountain. Horrendously expensive, I only have it on special occasions. I wouldn't serve it to anybody else in this building, but you, Chang Wufei, know how to enjoy tea. It's in your blood."

She smiled into her cup. It was a strangely feral grin, and Wufei looked at her, startled. She caught his eyes.

"Ah, don't worry. Colonel Wen's family may have connections, but so do I. And so do you, Wufei. I think you should mention this to your Lady Une. She knows all those high ranking military types who are banding together to protect dear Colonel Wen's reputation, besmirched by us two grubby mud-slingers."

That was a good idea! Une was completely behind the WCC inquiries. It was why she'd lent them Wufei. She'd have very little patience with those generals trying to protect the reputation of one of their own, hastily washing away the bloodstains before anyone noticed. He shared the smile with Susan and took a deep sip of the hot, flavorsome liquid in the eggshell gray cup. It was excellent.

 

 

Wufei was resolute, positive, determined.

His mind, however, must have felt whatever little justice he and Susan were hunting for slip from their grasp.

Wufei peeled his tunic off. It was almost solid with dried blood. That was the disadvantage of wearing white. That 'Shinigami' person had the right idea after all, black was so much more practical.

A distant whistle-bang of mortars brushed the air. He ignored it. It had been convenient that those other pilots had attacked the naval side of the base; it provided a good distraction. They'd wanted him to join them. He'd ignored them, and hadn't spoken to them since that first refusal. They were looking for something different, fighting their own war.

Wufei wasn't fighting a war.

He was Justice.

He'd found a nice silk tunic in the closet. The son of the family was only a couple of years younger than he was, and roughly his size, so the fit was perfect. Black, an intransigent color that swallowed all others. A good color for Justice. He slipped it on, and laid out the mourning white, stained red and black with blood, a banner in Meiran's name.

But he wasn't done yet. Now he had to find the men who had cornered his colony into committing suicide. He had some names; he'd find others. That lawyer from L5 was helping him. She should have more names for him by now. Their names and their address. And that of their families.

It was only justice, after all.

He fiddled briefly with the blood beneath his fingernails, then leaned over and wrenched his sword from Colonel Wen's guts. The tip had sliced between the back ribs, avoiding the spine, to embed itself in the oak floor beneath the body, pinning him down. The man hadn't taken as long to die as Wufei had thought he would; must have had a weak heart. Well, there were others to take care of. No time to dally here.

Oh, first he needed to fill up on ammunition. There had been a lot of men between him and the Colonel. From the sound of it, those other Gundams were still wreaking merry havoc on the ships docked in the bay. He should be able to get out of the base without too much trouble with that kind of 'distraction' going on in the background. He went to see what the Colonel had in his private stash of weaponry.

Wufei grabbed the handles of the weapons locker and jerked, and blinked as they held fast. Weird. The Colonel had grabbed a gun out of here when he'd seen Wufei, shortly before losing most of his fingers. The cabinet shouldn't be locked. Wufei frowned and tugged again, but the doors refused to open. He snarled and got ready to wrench it open by force, then stiffened and spun around. Someone had turned off the lights!

In the darkness, the room was bigger than the Colonel's study. Wufei looked instinctively at the spot where he'd pinned Wen to his elegant wooden floor. Gone?! Impossible! The man was deader than Confucius! Wufei had checked! He growled, an animalistic sound, reaching for his sword again. He'd track the bastard to the ends of-

His hand grasped only air. His sword was gone!

And he was wearing- Wufei stared down at the tee-shirt and boxers that had taken the place of the dark silk tunic, then looked around the changed room in growing panic.

Like a series of pixels resolving themselves into a single frightening picture, the significance of the room - which was the main room in Heero's house - his night-time clothes, the lack of bodies on the floor, everything came together. He leaned back against the weapons locker, suddenly dizzy and nauseated.

Good god. He'd been sleeping. He'd been sleep- _walking_. It had been a dream. The bloodshed, the murders, killing the- Wufei's stomach flipped and he put a hand to his mouth to stop himself from throwing up - killing the Colonel's family-... He'd come down and-...

Cold fear gripped his gut. He'd come down and had been trying to open the gun cabinet. In his sleep. Thank the gods the partners had a lock on it. And that, in his semi-conscious state of mind, he'd not remembered the code. His mouth was so dry he couldn't even swallow the wash of bile that bit into it. If he had-...

This was getting out of hand. He should go see Sally.

He shivered in the cool air and headed back to bed on quiet feet, thankful he hadn't woken Heero. He didn't feel up to a creative explanation as to why he was wandering around the house in his underwear trying to open the weapons locker in the dead of night.

Talk to Sally. Take some time off tomorrow - no, he and Susan had an important interrogation in the morning, the man they were seeing was being flown in from Cyprus. That couldn't be put off. And then they had to go and take care of the political thing, make sure the case wasn't shut down. Wufei had arranged to talk with Une and her aide, and see what they could do. The Lady had moved an important conference so that they could do this tomorrow afternoon; he had to attend. Okay, the next day he'd go see Sally. No, he had to go with Susan to Barcelona. Okay, when they got back, he promised, slipping into bed. For sure.

And what would Sally say? Wufei stared at the ceiling. His heart beat was slowly returning to normal, though the horror and disgust at what a part of him might be capable of if he let it still clung to him. What could Sally do? Give him sleeping pills? He had a feeling this might be a bit beyond the sedatives she would prescribe. He might have nightmares anyway, and not be able to wake up. He'd go insane. He was already halfway there as it was.

Sally would tell him, in all kindness, to give up the case. She was a friend, she knew his strengths and his weaknesses, she'd seen him at his worst after all. He wouldn't be too ashamed to tell her what was haunting him, why this was making him suffer.

But she might order him to lay off the case. She was his superior in the chain of command, as a medical officer. He couldn't give up now! The dead of his clan and his family deserved better than that.

He hated this. He hated being brought low by his own limitations. The little boy was having nightmares. God, that was pathetic! At least he wasn't wetting the bed!

No, he was trying to get guns out of the weapons locker instead.

...As soon as they got back from Barcelona, he'd talk to Sally.

 

 

"You should talk to Sally."

Wufei's chopsticks, which had been toying listlessly with his breakfast, clinked harshly against the plate. He'd not been able to do more than doze last night, after that blood-soaked dream, and he had woken up at five. Susan didn't need him in the office until ten, when the man from Cyprus would arrive, so he'd practiced his forms that morning, the slow, elegant Tai Chi Yang movements loosening his tense body.

"I'm seeing her in little over a week for my physical evaluation," Wufei answered in a voice that did not lend itself to discussion.

Heero stared at him. He'd visibly been turning this over in his mind since he'd come downstairs to find Wufei already up.

"Maybe you should see her now. You're not sleeping. Or eating." Heero glared at Wufei's bowl, then up at his face. Strong arms crossed themselves over his chest and he waited.

Wufei stared right back, mulishly. In the dazed state he was in, the only thing that seemed to be properly functioning was his ability to get annoyed. "I didn't realize you were my nurse as well as my trainer."

Heero's scowl became puzzled. "Nurse? I just said you weren't-"

"Don't worry about me," Wufei snapped. "I'm just a little tired. My shoulder is keeping me awake. And there's a lot of work for the WCC case, it's very involving. But I'm okay. By the end of next week, I'll be ready to resume our missions."

"Not at this rate, you won't," Heero countered bluntly.

The sticks clattered against the bowl. Wufei stared at Heero, then something went 'snap!' in his tired mind. "I apologize for having something like a normal recovery rate, despite your best efforts," he sneered acridly. "Waste of time on your part, I guess. Well, tell Une she can take you off light duty and assign you to Sam's team on a permanent basis until your injured partner can start taking up the slack in a couple of months."

Heero was staring at him, he knew it, but Wufei didn't bother turning around. He was at the door, dragging on his boots and his jacket. He had plenty to do, leads to follow for Susan. He had intended to work here for a while, but he could work just as well at the office, without any criticism regarding his merely human body.

"I'm walking to the bus stop, I should be able to manage that," he threw over his shoulder, as Heero finally reacted, shoving his chair back from the counter. "I'll see you tonight, assuming you're not reassigned to-"

"Chang, I didn't mean-"

The door slammed and Wufei walked off. Fortunately he didn't need a stick anymore, 'cause he'd probably have forgotten it. His leg was better and he could walk the ten-minute walk to the bus stop without any pain, as long as he stopped stomping.

His flash of anger cooled a hundred feet away from the workshop, letting him fall back into fatigue and apathy. No, Heero hadn't meant it like that and Wufei knew it. And it had been unfair for Wufei, who was the talker of the two, to twist his partner's words like that. But...it had hurt. And it shouldn't have. Heero was only stating facts. Wufei had tried to cover for the flash of pain, his fear of the questions Heero might ask. He'd done so very stupidly; it was one thing to say his injuries were aching a bit to explain his lack of sleep, but shouting at Heero that he himself didn't think he'd be fit for another month or two...way to go, Chang.

Now Heero was going to assume that Wufei physically wasn't up to it. Maybe Heero really would get Une to assign him to Sam's team for a while. Get out of the house where his ill-tempered partner blew up in his face at regular intervals. Heero had never mastered the art of not taking angry words at face value. After living with Wufei for over a year, you'd think he'd have caught on by now. Literal-minded moron!

No, that wasn't true anymore, either...Wufei let the annoyance elapse. There was no-one here to pretend to.

His partner had been getting better at social interaction this past year. Wufei didn't feel like admitting it though, because it made him wonder if Heero might not go and find himself another partner.

Maybe Heero would be gone by this evening. Or maybe not. Wufei had a very hard time reading Heero these days. Partly because he'd get mixed up in all his dreams. Partly because what he thought he saw didn't make sense, not coming from the Heero Yuy he knew. And Wufei was afraid to look any deeper.

If his partner was still here when Wufei returned that night, he was ready to bet that Heero wasn't about to press the issue any more.

A tiny lost voice in his head wished Heero would. Even if that led to everything coming out. But Wufei squashed that little whisper relentlessly. This was for the best. Heero had apparently conquered his own war-time demons with little difficulty. If the soldier realized his partner was being tormented by a few figments of his own imagination, he'd really have reason to think of Wufei as weak. Not in the body, but in the mind, and that was something no injury could excuse and no amount of exercise could help.

Better to stay silent.

When he returned, late that night, too late for any training exercises, Heero was still there. Neither of the partners said anything.

 

 

"You know..." Treize sipped the wine and looked thoughtful. "Chianti doesn't really go all that well with this. It's too light a wine. Not enough body."

"I think it's good, Your Excellency," Une piped up devotedly (Treize had provided the beverages).

"Can I have some?" Meiran asked hopefully.

"No. You're too young," Master Li told her severely without looking away from the red liquid in the crystal glass. Meiran tried to look angry and severe too, but there was a bit too much teenage pout to truly succeed. Her pig-tails bounced as she scrunched down in her chair in a sulk.

"Yes, the flavor isn't strong enough. Especially for _abats_. Maybe something leaner." Treize put down his glass and fished around the crockpot at the center of the table. "Hmm. Lady? Did you want- oh. Here. Yuy? Did you want this piece? It's the heart."

Wufei jerked himself away from the horrified contemplation of his own dismembered carcass on the kitchen's chopping block, to stare around wildly at the long dining table, trying to catch Heero's reaction.

Heero was looking dubiously at his untouched wine; he didn't drink alcohol normally. He glanced at the chunk of cooked meat Treize had fished out with a pronged fork spearing it through.

"Why would I want that?"

"It's said to be the best bit," Treize told him fastidiously.

"I'm full." Heero pushed away his half-eaten dish and took a cautious sip of wine.

"Oh dear. I'm rather full, too. It's not very rich meat, but one tires of it quickly. Lady? Sally?"

"Nah, I'm good."

"No, thank you, Your Excellency."

"Can I try some?" Meiran asked hopefully.

"No," Sally said gently. "You've not finished what's on your plate as it is. And it's too rich for a little girl like you."

"Don't know about that," Treize muttered, letting the heart slip off the fork back into the huge pot where the rest of Wufei's butchered body - the edible bits - were simmering. Skin, guts and bones had been discarded in a bin beneath the chopping block against which Wufei was - somehow - leaning, invisible, non-existent, a screaming slip of consciousness. Wufei turned back to the table, because he didn't want to see what was left of his upper body - the first few vertebra, ribs and head - hanging from the butcher's hook above the kitchen's drain.

Bile washed in Wufei's throat as he woke, teeth clenched so hard they felt like cracking. He spun and buried his face in the pillow to muffle his dry choking sobs. His fist crashed into the mattress, then again.

No. No, no, no, no...I'm going insane. I can't...I can't...someone, please...please help me- please, I just want to sleep...

His hand fished at the bedside table, from which he'd long ago removed the Luger. His mind felt frozen, immobile, unable to move past the sight of his corpse, dismembered and gored and ringed with clotted blood lining the butcher's block, the table where the remains were being feasted upon by- his body scrabbled with a volition all its own, like an animal trying to escape a trap.

The cool of the phone against his ear jerked him back to reality, or something like it, just as the second ring was interrupted by the connection being established.

//Hello?//

Fuck! What was he doing?!

Wufei fumbled and cut the connection, and then he stared at the phone. Why the hell had he done that?!

The memory slammed into him, making the nausea even sharper. In his dream, the guests at the table had been eating and laughing, clinks of glass and cutlery. Duo was trying to get Trowa to feed him, for some reason. And sitting next to them, plate completely untouched, wine knocked over and staining the white tablecloth like blood, Quatre, pale and stiff with horror, was staring straight at Wufei.

Wufei shook himself so violently the muscles in his neck creaked. Then, face set and grim, he hit the speed dial '4' again.

//Wufei?! Is this you?//

"Yes-"

//Why did you call me- why did you hang up? I was about to call you back, are you-//

"Winner! Sorry about that. I meant to dial another number and hit yours by mistake," Wufei explained in a voice he forced out from between his teeth.

//Are you okay?!// Quatre exclaimed, voice suddenly tight and tense with worry.

Damn it! Wufei leaned his head back against the pillow, clammy with sweat, and took two deep breaths, releasing his clenching muscles one fiber at a time by force of will.

"I'm fine. Sorry, I'm in a bit of a hurry. But I didn't want you to worry. I'm sorry if I woke you."

//You didn't wake me.// Quatre sounded completely puzzled now. //It's almost seven in the morning on L4. I was just finishing my breakfast.//

"Right, right, time difference. I've got to go, Quatre. Sorry for bothering you."

//Wu-// Click.

Wufei quickly turned the phone off and put it on the bedside table. Hopefully Quatre wouldn't call Heero. Not much his partner could do even if Winner did contact him; Heero was somewhere in Eastern Europe, on a mission for Une. Well, since Wufei was alone, he was going to take a shower and rinse off the sweat. It was three thirty in the morning but Wufei intended, if at all possible, to never sleep again. And hopefully never eat again, he thought with a new surge of nausea as he remembered the feast. Tomorrow, he'd said he'd go see Sally.

But...

But he was afraid to.

For the first time in weeks, Wufei looked at himself in the bathroom mirror instead of studiously ignoring it.

He'd lost weight, and he had black marks under his eyes. But he didn't look that bad, all in all. His body had hardened during the desperate hours of the war. It would take a lot more than the last few weeks of trauma to physically impair him more than this. The lines of stress and exhaustion were lost in his usual tough and arrogant expression.

But his heart-rate was more elevated even at rest, from exhaustion and tension, no doubt. He didn't dare imagine what his blood-pressure must be like. His skin was very dry, his stomach rebelled if he ate most anything, in fact it felt suspiciously like he was developing an ulcer. All these signs would make it hard to downplay the extent of the problem to Sally, who knew him well, and who was a very good doctor used to dealing with recalcitrant patients.

The real problem would be telling Sally that he was having dreams that were leaving him half awake in front of a weapons locker.

Damn.

Well...he would be seeing her next week anyway for his physical. Susan had broken through the political resistance to their investigation, and things were going well again. Hopefully, the nightmares would ease, and he would be okay.

A small part of Wufei was trying to tell him that this attitude was illogical and very dangerous, but it didn't make much headway against the fog in his mind. He kept seeing Sally eating his remains, licking her lips and reaching for the wine-

Wufei tensed and stumbled to the toilet as the full memory of his dream came crashing through his mind and worked at wringing his body. He'd not eaten that evening, so there wasn't much to throw up. His gut cramped so badly that he stayed crouched on the bathroom floor for ten minutes afterwards, unwilling even to get up and rinse out his mouth, and take a drink to moisten his desperately dry throat, made raw by the acid bile.

Next week. He'd go see Sally next week. He wasn't weak. He was Heero Yuy's partner! He'd fought and helped to win one of the most hopeless wars in history. He wasn't going to let this beat him. He was stronger than this.

If Sally learned about the gun locker incident, she'd put him on full sick leave, probably for a considerable time, and recommend him for psychiatric evaluation too, he was ready to bet. That wasn't acceptable. Heero was counting on him to be ready for duty again next week. They'd go on missions again, get rid of the stress in a cleansing fight. Battle together, back to back once more. No more arguments, no more questions, no more searching looks, no more doubts. Destroy real criminals instead of fighting evanescent phantoms. He would be all right.

He'd go see Sally next week.


	33. Breaking Storm, Part III

"If wind comes from an empty cave, it's not without a reason"  
\---Chinese saying.

 

"Wufei?"

He started and blinked. "Where did he go?!"

Susan stared at him. "Anton Mondberg? He left over three minutes ago."

Shit! Wufei cursed himself in three different languages. He'd zoned off during the interview with a key witness.

"Were you asleep?" Susan gave a small half-smile, different than her usual cool one. "I thought you might be, though your eyes were open."

Wufei groaned and rubbed his face. His eyes were dry and gritty. "Why didn't you say anything?!"

"Well...ah, I'm afraid I'm too good a prosecutor to not use a good weapon at my disposal." Susan's grin was smooth and she didn't even bother to look embarrassed.

Wufei stared at her, his hand dropping heavily to the armrest of his chair. "What?"

"It was pretty obvious to me, because I know you, that you weren't entirely there. But as it were, your pretty black and very blank eyes were pointed roughly in Mondberg's direction. He was a tough guy, we'd have been here all afternoon with him trying to get him to talk, but after five minutes of you staring at him like that, he got so nervous that he gave me all I wanted to know and nearly ran out of the room."

Wufei sank his head into his hands again and groaned. "Glad I could help," he muttered.

"Wufei..." Susan leaned back against the table, carelessly pushing recording equipment out of the way. "We've only known each other a few weeks, but I consider you to be a friend. I guess...I guess this must be hard for you."

Wufei looked at her wearily. She'd never said anything before, though she knew of his connection to colony A0206. Susan wasn't going to worry about the pain of others as long as it didn't interfere with her task. He wondered why she was mentioning it now.

"You know, it helps to talk. Or so I hear." Susan gave him a lopsided grin. He doubted she talked to many people, and he was ready to bet she had a few nightmares of her own. "If you ever want to get something off your chest...You know I'm not easily shocked. It might make you feel better." She shrugged casually, but she was watching him closely.

"Thanks, Susan." Susan was a good woman, and she knew his past, as a pilot and the scion of his clan. He could tell her a lot but...

_But she's not the one you want to hear asking you that question._

The perfidious, traitorous part of his mind slipped that statement into his thoughts just as he was about to agree. And he was too tired to protest for once.

Yeah, he wanted Heero to look at him in that sympathetic way. Open up and talk to Wufei, drag the pain out despite his resistance and help him deal with it. He didn't want the compassion of someone who couldn't fully comprehend. He wanted the understanding of an equal.

Well, not only was that never going to happen, but Wufei would kill himself rather than have Heero know the aching need within him, the weakness and torment in his own mind. He didn't want Heero to pity him.

In his mind, the two conflicting desires ran side by side, wrestling like dogs, without breaking through his exhaustion.

He looked at Susan's serene face. He could talk to her, it would help a bit, but...

Heero would be back from his mission. He'd be at home.

Wufei hadn't seen his partner in three days, the first time they'd been apart for any length of time since his accident. Heero had said he'd take missions for Sam; he didn't owe Wufei anything, the latter reminded himself. Though in fact that turned out to be the only mission away Heero had ended up taking, and that was only because he was crucial to Sam's plans. Wufei wanted to believe that Heero might have been refusing other missions in order to train him, help him get better. He wasn't sure he dared to believe it though. And every time he thought of his partner, he remembered that dream of that gruesome feast, two days ago-...three? Couldn't remember. Didn't want to think about that. He just wanted to see Heero.

He was probably being very stupid, but he'd rather spend an evening of silence with his dour partner than with an intelligent woman whom he could actually talk to. That was just the way of things.

Wufei nodded firmly as he walked the last few feet to the workshop's door. His mind had stayed in a rut, virtually at a standstill, fixated on that simple fact all the way home. He didn't actually remember what he'd said to Susan; he'd thanked her and explained he had to go home, he thought. She'd made a joke about his girlfriend again, hadn't she...? His girlfriend, yeah, right. Wufei sighed and made a few motions to loosen up his shoulders. The long bus drive out to the industrial zone had stiffened his muscles, and the short walk from the stop to the door hadn't relaxed him. He was always tense these days. He could have called Heero to come pick him up, but his partner had just returned from a trip, Wufei didn't want to inconvenience him.

He opened the door and walked in, back straight, face set and proud. Then he stumbled and ground to a halt.

Quatre was at the kitchen counter. He was frozen in the process of handing over some photos to Heero sitting opposite him. Blue eyes widened and the photos tumbled unheeded to the counter top.

"Winner?" Wufei said, trying to keep casual. He couldn't help glancing at Heero, who was looking from Quatre to Wufei and back again, scowling a bit; to Wufei's tired eyes, Heero looked apprehensive.

Quatre let a hiss of breath out between his teeth, and then spun on Heero as the latter hesitantly reached to pick up the fallen photographs. Wufei saw Quatre mouth the word 'tired?!', his eyebrows in his hairline. Heero gave him a warning look. Quatre bit off anything further he seemed to want to say, stumbled off his stool, and approached Wufei as if afraid the latter would bolt for the door.

"Wufei, you look...terrible."

Wufei licked his lips. He couldn't stop his eyes from darting towards Heero, couldn't stop- his partner was watching him from the corner of his eyes, apparently waiting to see how he'd react.

"Winner, what are you doing here?"

"Is that all you have to say?" Quatre stared at him. "You've lost weight- I only saw you a month and a half ago! You look like you haven't slept since we took down that Syndicate boss!"

"It's great to see you too," Wufei snapped, taking refuge in sarcasm and annoyance. Heero had looked away. Bored with the whole worry-warting? Or...

"What on earth is the matter?" Quatre whispered. He was in front of Wufei, who realized, to his shame and confusion, that he'd taken a step back as if retreating from a physical danger.

"I-I'm still recuperating from my injuries, that's all." He hated himself for that stutter. He might as well have said, 'hold on a minute while I think of a convincing lie'. "And I'm working on a difficult case these days."

"Case? You just said you're recuperating from your-"

"Deskwork," Wufei snapped. He also hated himself for the word 'difficult'; Heero had looked around sharply at that. "Nothing that concerns you."

"You concern me," Quatre corrected him softly. "I knew you didn't sound right over the phone, I felt-..."

Quatre interrupted himself, and he half-glanced over his shoulder. "Let's talk later. Une wanted to see me regarding some financing of a new division, so I invited myself to stay at your place for a few days." Quatre smiled apologetically at the imposition. Wufei was too tired to bother calling Quatre on what he was pretty sure was a lie. Winner was too clever for him anyway; Wufei was pretty sure the businessman would have all the corroborative evidence needed, and a couple of Maganacs parked in a car outside the door, ready to back him up.

Wufei found himself - not too certain how he'd gotten there - sitting at the kitchen counter looking at photographs being shoved under his nose. Duo, looking at a horse with deep suspicion (apparently Quatre had persuaded him to give horse-back riding another try). To Wufei's tired eyes, the horse didn't look too keen either.

The next picture showed Trowa, a smudge of dirt on his nose, doing something in a luxurious garden. The photo was recent, and Wufei felt a sudden intense relief as he realized Trowa had made it out of the underworld in one piece. The young man looked wan and tired, and Wufei thought he could spot something haunted in his eyes, but Trowa was smiling at the camera in the next shot, trying, ineffectually, to clean the spot on his nose. Goddamn it, why hadn't someone told him that Trowa was okay?

He glanced at Quatre and Heero, talking quietly together about the reconstruction of some colonies. Before he could snap angrily, the words froze in his throat. What if- what if he _had_ been told that Trowa had come home safely? What if it had been during one of his black-outs the past two weeks...Wufei licked his lips and pretended to look at the photos again, afraid of saying anything that might lead to questions about his present mental condition. He stared a bit blindly at colonies being rebuilt, war damage erased, Rashid and a rather pretty woman smiling together, a few other Maguanacs posing outrageously for the camera, some shots of Quatre's L4 estate, Duo and Trowa at a targeting range, probably competing the hell out of each other from the Shinigami grin on Maxwell's face...

 

 

Wufei started. "What?"

He gaped at the half-eaten sandwich in his hand, feeling his stomach roil, and then he stared around him in confusion. Quatre was sitting on the bench beside him, looking at him strangely. He was also holding a sandwich.

"Are you okay, Wufei? You look a bit..." Quatre didn't say what Wufei looked like, but he started to frown.

"Fine," Wufei muttered automatically and glanced around discreetly. They were in the little park in front of the Preventer HQ. No one else occupied the four stone benches, deserted under a weak spring sun, the sky dotted with cold, wet clouds. How-how had they gotten here?! Was this a dream? Images clashed and fought in Wufei's mind: Quatre's arrival last night, strange semi-hallucinations, waking up at his desk, Heero helping him with his training, a morning with Susan, a vicious nightmare last night, everything blended together, equally unreal. What was he doing here? Was this another dream? They often started off banal like this. And he didn't remember going out to the park.

Quatre was talking. "You know, I had nightmares, about the war- actually, I still do. In fact the only strange thing is that you're suddenly having really vivid ones every night."

Wufei gave a non-committal grunt. Memories swirled, disjointed snatches...Quatre had...come to take him out to lunch? He'd called Wufei over the phone, and they'd met here? He remembered a voice speaking, it sounded like his own, telling Quatre a very watered down version of the past four weeks.

"I can see why you're not sleeping too well." Quatre was apparently unaware of Wufei's confusion, picking at his own sandwich. "I had a particularly bad episode after I visited the reconstruction sites of those colonies, you know, the ones I...My doctor prescribed strong sedatives, anti-depressants - I had a, ah, a friend over at the time, Trowa, so I wasn't worried about taking something to sleep to get over the worst of it." Quatre lived in a mansion in the middle of a high security compound on an exclusive L4 colony surrounded by Maguanacs, and it went without saying that he would still want another ex-Pilot present before he took anything that could affect his judgment or make him disoriented and woozy.

Wufei listened absently as Quatre described some of his dreams and drew parallels between their two situations. Apparently Wufei had told Quatre about the investigation, his colony, his nightmares...Yes, he could talk to Quatre. The man was the most intelligent of the five, and because he'd also been a pilot, he knew all about guilt, murder and blood.

And all along Wufei had wished that the eyes watching him with so much understanding were a different shade of blue. The realization, and returning memory of their lunch, made Wufei's guts cramp, and he fought to hold down the half of sandwich Quatre had browbeaten him into eating.

He didn't want this from Heero! Quatre was a good man, and Wufei wanted his respect, but it wasn't the same. He could tell Quatre some of the crap that he'd gone though, and Quatre wouldn't- ...wouldn't mind seeing this flaw in his armor. But Heero...Heero was his partner, his rival, his other half on the edge of danger they thrived on. If Wufei lost Heero's respect, then he'd lose everything, and Heero's respect was so very, very hard to earn.

"- even Heero is worried now, and I think-"

"He told you this?" 

Wufei really, really wanted that unsaid. Not the words, but the little desperate torn tone of voice he'd used. Gods, he was really losing it. His mind was almost completely numb, it was as if there was nothing between his mouth and his soul, all his usual barriers worn through by nightmare after nightmare.

Quatre had taken a bite out of his sandwich and chewed it a couple of times, staring straight ahead. It looked like he was grinding his teeth, actually.

"Yes. I called him after you hung up and I couldn't reach you," he finally said, after swallowing and taking a drink from a bottle on the stone bench at his side. Wufei realized he was suddenly terribly thirsty; his mouth was dry as a bone. He glanced around and was relieved to find a similar bottle at his own side.

"He didn't say much, but he told me that he was concerned. He said you were tired. Well, we both know that Heero Yuy can give a detailed battle plan in about ten words, but he can't express a complex emotion if his life depended on it. Or if your life depended on it," Quatre added in a mutter around the water bottle's neck. "He's better at saying what you should _do_ , or acting it out himself."

Quatre suddenly smiled, a small private expression as his eyes stared at something Wufei couldn't see. "My doctor gave me a long lecture about guilt, living with it, accepting it, and still finding room to live life and even enjoy it by embracing the present and occasionally giving myself permission to be myself, just for awhile. Heero did the same thing in that monotone of his by ordering me to play with the dogs, instead of wallowing in guilt over something I couldn't change. Sometimes...sometimes he underestimates his ability to express himself, just because he can't describe or fully grasp his own private feelings."

Then Wufei, whose bewildered mind was trying to fit the word 'dogs' into something like a reasonable context, found himself speared by a sharp glance.

"Look, Wufei, I won't comment on what you two have. I know quite well that these things don't make sense from the outside. Not for people like us. But...do you two clash and backbite when you're fighting a common enemy?"

"Of course not!" Wufei was momentarily puzzled, and then realized that Quatre must be referring to the partners' verbal duels and savage sparring. "It's our way. We don't let each other get soft, in mind or body, even when we're not on a mission. A warrior must always strive for battle, even in moments of peace. But when we start fighting- well, you've seen us."

"Yes, I've seen you. It's almost scary." Quatre grinned; it wasn't scared, it was slightly chilling and lined with faint admiration. Then it crumbled into a worried frown. "Can't you...couldn't you two consider this tough spot you're in as something like a battle?"

"A battle against what?" Wufei snarled.

"The last battle of the war, Wufei," Quatre murmured sadly, staring at a piece of lettuce drooping over the bread. "Try to think of it like that. I think you need Heero's backing on this-" Wufei looked away sharply, and Quatre hesitated and pursued in a lower voice, "I'm sure he'd be more than willing to help you if you gave him a chance." Yeah, right, Wufei thought, trying to squash the part in himself that wanted to believe that. "But you know that Heero doesn't know what losing his temper means. He gets plenty angry, but it's always cold, well-thought out, almost analytical. He doesn't know how to handle it when you start shouting, twisting his own words against him like you did last night-"

"Last night?" Wufei blinked. What had happened last night? He'd come home, Quatre was there, they'd looked at photographs, Heero had- Heero had helped him with his exercises and-

"You don't remember?!" Quatre's eyes were huge. Wufei bit his lips. It sounded like a joke, making him believe he'd forgotten something that had never happened. But he did have a suspicious blank in last night's chain of events, after the training was done-

"I remember, I just-"

"You don't remember!" Quatre accused, his voice echoing through the small park.

"Winner-"

"That's _it!_ " Quatre shouted, throwing down his sandwiches on the bench and leaping to his feet. "I don't care if you and Heero are nice and comfortable living in Denial Land! There's something very wrong here, and I'm taking you to a hospital right now!"

Quatre grabbed Wufei's arm and found himself jerked nearly to the ground as a result. He stared at Wufei, shocked. Wufei looked stonily back into the big blue eyes. Quatre's effort to pull him off the bench hadn't even made him budge an inch.

"You forget yourself, Winner." Wufei's voice was soft but as sharply edged as his sword, honed by pride, arrogance and anger. Even Heero backed away from him when he was like this, knowing that when he hit that wall, even his more-than-human strength could never batter through it. Quatre slowly dropped Wufei's arm and straightened up, still glaring but now he was actually ready to listen. Wufei took a bite of his sandwich and swallowed carefully - ignoring the roiling in his gut - to underline just how unmoved he was by Quatre's little outburst. Then he looked up, and Quatre's eyes narrowed as he bore the full brunt of Wufei's annoyance.

"You are worrying over nothing. Yes, I'm tired, and it's causing me to forget unimportant things, things that aren't related to the case I'm working on." Quatre's mouth opened in shock, and the tiny part of Wufei that was being shielded by the iron front was rather glad Heero wasn't here to hear himself be described like that. "I'm not sleeping very well, my injuries-"

"Your injuries have nothing to do with it! I watched you exercising, you're moving fine," Quatre hissed, cowed but still fighting. "Even Heero can't believe that lame-ass excuse anymore, as much as he wants to."

That cracked the shell, as Wufei's heart missed a beat. "What do you mean? Heero's been training me, helping me recover my mobility. He even drives me to work to spare my knee from -"

Quatre, a true tactician, must have felt Wufei falter, and exploited the breach immediately. "He trains you, so you don't think he noticed your leg and shoulder are one hundred percent fine now? He drives you to work or the bus stop because he's afraid you'll pass out at the wheel. And god! He thinks you noticed and that you're accepting his help! You two have got a real communication problem -"

"Stay out of it." Quatre's teeth clicked as he closed his mouth sharply at Wufei's dangerous tone, reminding him of his unspoken promise not to judge the partners' relationship.

Wufei watched, annoyance sizzling and defenses high, as Quatre visibly reined in his temper and resorted to cold, hard facts: "Wufei, you're a warrior. You don't zone out in parks while people are talking to you - like you did just now, I'm pretty sure. I know -"

Suddenly Quatre's voice dropped and became slightly husky. "I know very, very well that when your own mind traps you, it's very hard to take a look at yourself and realize how badly you're damaged. I went through the same thing. I couldn't see how badly screwed up I'd become until a friend took a big risk to point it out to me." His lips twisted in pain. Wufei knew it was a ploy; Quatre was more controlled than that, and he used words more surely than any weapon. But Wufei also knew that just because this was a stratagem, it wasn't necessarily a lie.

"For your own sake - and Heero's - " Wufei's eyes widened, at the blow and how accurately and clinically it had been delivered "- you have to admit that you have a serious problem. You're falling apart. This case is driving you-"

"This case is almost over," Wufei interrupted coldly. "I'm meeting Susan this afternoon for a summary of our work. Then tomorrow I see Sally for my physical-" it was tomorrow wasn't it? Yes, yes it was. And tonight, he'd sleep. The case was over, or at least his part in it was. He'd done his best, he'd held out to the end, he'd not dishonored his dead. Tonight he would sleep, and tomorrow he'd be all right, and he'd apologize to Heero, and let Sally give him some tranqs for a few days' rest and then everything would be okay again. It would all be okay...

Quatre was staring at him, visibly wanting to argue with that. But he probably knew just how unmovable Wufei could be.

"Okay," he finally agreed, his voice a bit dull. "Very well. This afternoon, I'm in the building, talking to Une. I have a rental car." He was speaking slowly and clearly, in a manner Wufei would have found immensely offensive if he wasn't so goddamned tired. "When you're finished with Susan, you call me. Okay? I'll drive you home. Then tomorrow I'm taking you to see Sally. Assuming Heero doesn't beat me up so he can do it himself." Wufei's eyes narrowed dangerously and Quatre hastily moved on. "Just promise me you won't take the bus home, all right? I- I would feel better if, ah..."

Wufei waited for him to conclude, but Quatre obviously realized he'd said enough and didn't want to give his one-time colleague the ammunition to take him down. Quatre was a lot smarter than Heero that way. He knew just how dangerous words could be; he was an expert himself.

"You're a bunch of old women," Wufei snapped, wrapping up the remains of his sandwich.

"If you say, so, Wufei, if you say so." Quatre's voice was soft with relief at Wufei's unspoken capitulation. "But thanks for indulging us."

Quatre's tremulous smile was warm, and Wufei glanced away from it, ashamed. His friend was worried, and he was only trying to help. And Heero-...

Heero was concerned.

Heero had figured out that Wufei's injuries were not the problem, if he'd ever believed it in the first place. Wufei was so tired he didn't even know what to think about that. He didn't _want_ to think about that. It hurt too much. It was too big, too complex, too caught up in the arrangement they'd carefully constructed in the two years they'd known each other. It was like a rope at the bottom of a pile of delicately balanced vases. If he tugged at it too hard, the whole thing would come tumbling down. And if they no longer had that...if Wufei wasn't up to Heero's standards any more or was too unreliable to be his partner any longer...would Heero still have a reason to stay with him?

"So I'll pick you up when you're done, okay? Just call me on your cell." Quatre looked at him sharply until Wufei nodded, then he headed down the corridor with one last worried glance over his shoulder. Wufei realized, with a start he tried to hide, that he was in front of Susan's office door.

Wufei shook himself, squared his shoulders, focused. It was a bit of a struggle, but his tired mind could still do it. His personal problems were so small compared to his duty.

"Ah, Wufei, come in! I was just printing things out. Wow, I never realized how much work we did together. I'm really going to miss your help! Ah..." Susan gave him the polished Prosecutor look, weighing her chances of persuading him to help her some more, he'd wager.

"I'm glad I was able to help you." Wufei was entirely sincere. He'd paid with his body and his mind, but he was used to that. Susan had been working this case for months, and she would be working it for months to come once she found a new aide and obtained a new sabbatical from her law firm. She was the truly brave one here. Wufei felt a bit of guilt, but he also knew where his duty now lay.

"I'm sorry to leave you before it's done, but I'm back in shape," Wufei continued firmly. In his chest something ached; Heero knew his wounds were healed, he knew, he'd said nothing. That single fact cut both ways and down to the bone. "Tomorrow I will have my physical evaluation, and then I must return to my regular duties. My partner has been very patient, but we need to get back into the field."

"And I bet your girlfriend will be glad you stopped working such long hours," Susan teased.

"Susan, I've told you before, I don't have a girlfriend, and I work these kinds of hours while on a mission anyway."

"You mean a handsome boy like you lives alone? Sorry, I just can't believe that!"

Wufei merely sipped the tea she'd slipped into his hand. It was the expensive Yulien Mountain again; Susan was thanking him for his participation in an unspoken way. Actions and not words...Heero used actions and not words. Driving Wufei to work, offering to help in the case...

He had been trying to help. Like a partner.

But that's not enough, a part of Wufei whispered.

Yes, it is.

No, it's not.

It is if I'm strong enough to bear it.

"Wufei?"

"Let's get on to the case." Wufei grabbed the stack of papers on the desk. He'd not told Susan he was living with his partner. It wasn't hard to hide; she hardly ever asked him personal questions apart from teasing him about the girlfriend thing. Susan was just too focused on her mission to really care about Wufei's private life. But she was also very smart, and correcting her misapprehension that he was living alone while he was this tired might lead to an embarrassing slip-up.

"Okay." Susan looked at him searchingly. "You know...it's not good to live alone when you're having a hard time. Your problems eat you up if you can't talk about them."

Wufei almost swallowed the exquisite tea the wrong way. Very, very true, and he was getting a bit tired of hearing it.

"My offer still stands. If you want to talk about something, anything...I'm here for the next week. Just drop by. You know my address. Drop by anytime, you know what my working hours are like. Chances are you won't be dragging me out of bed!"

Wufei nodded in what he hoped looked like gratitude and rattled the papers.

He had someone at home he should talk to. And he couldn't. Until he resolved that conundrum, at least in his own mind and soul, talking to Susan, or even to Quatre, was not nearly as helpful as it should be.

 

 

"Heero, pick up the goddamn phone!"

It was Quatre's voice. He sounded panicked and he was actually swearing.

Wufei glanced around at the walls of the colony, flames licking around them, and decided he couldn't really blame Quatre for losing his grip. He felt like swearing himself. But Heero wasn't here. Heero had left him because Wufei wasn't good enough to be his partner anymore. Because Wufei's weak spirit had led him back here yet again. Wufei was about to die here, in the destruction of A0206, and Heero hadn't wanted to die with him. Why should he? When had they ever said they would never leave each other? When had they ever turned from their duty to put the other first? Isabel Hunter, that crazy, psycho bitch, was screaming at him from her jail cell as flames licked at it, something about having told him so, but she was a stupid woman. Wufei had not needed anyone to tell him what he'd always known.

The workshop's ceiling caught fire as he looked at it. Why...why was he lying on his back? He wanted to die on his feet. He struggled to sit up. The colony's stabilizers must have been damaged already; he kept swaying. He managed to get his feet under him and stand.

"No, Wufei, sit down!" Quatre gestured wildly at him through the smoke, but stayed at a prudent distance. "I- Heero?!"

Sit down? Why, what was the point? Meiran's gravestone was already blackened, and their field of flowers was an inferno. His colony was burning, his family was dying. He should be on his feet. He swayed.

Thank god Heero wasn't here. The words were honest and echoed from the deepest part of his soul. Wufei didn't want Heero to burn with the rest. He rather wished Quatre wasn't here either. Maybe he could find an escape pod for-

"Heero, come home _now!_ Wufei's collapsed! He's having some kind of full-blown psychotic episode -"

The flames screamed like animals as they devoured the temple. Wufei smiled. His colony had been dying for a while now, falling apart like an old man. At least it was getting a demise fitting of the Dragon clan. Master Li wasn't dead yet; he was standing in the temple as it was being consumed, nodding sagely. He was holding the jade Shenlong and thanking Wufei for having brought it back. Ah, yes, that's why Wufei had returned. Master Li's followers were sparring in the burning gardens, celebrating life with their pure, violent movements, fighting to the last. They had red paper fans and stars tied to their foreheads. And...Susan was near the workshop door, dressed in a rich, traditional robe that was beginning to smoke from the heat. She was holding a burning chalice. Snakes were writhing inside. He had to thank her for her efforts at avenging his colony. She was looking straight at him through the flames, but she wasn't seeing him, he knew that somehow; the smoke of destruction was obscuring her vision.

"I can't call an ambulance! He's walking around and talking like he's gone crazy! He can't even hear me! If someone tries to grab him right now he could- okay, okay."

First, he had to thank Susan. Then he had to find an escape pod for Quatre. Then he had to go to see Meiran's grave one last time-

As if summoned by his thoughts, she was there before him, a hand held out to stop his advance.

"I'll call the ambulance as soon as I hang up. Just make it here before they do, Heero, because-...No, no, that's not a good idea. He's armed. Let's not get anyone else involved, just me and you."

It was the older Meiran, the one who protected his sleep from nightmares when she could.

"Wake up, Wufei!" she barked.

"Me?! Disarm- Are you insane?!" Quatre gasped into the phone. How come the phone was still working? The workshop was going up in smoke.

"That's because you're dreaming, moron," Meiran snapped, but her eyes were wide with concern. It felt...good. To have someone concerned about him, about his pain. What? Dreaming?

"I'm not dreaming, the place is burning down," Wufei pointed out, a bit bemused. Meiran had to have noticed.

"Er, yeah, he says the place is burning - no, of course there's no fire!" Quatre groaned into the phone. Wufei stared at him. What was with these people?

"You're dreaming! Listen to what he's saying, will you?" Meiran rolled her eyes, gesturing towards Quatre who was standing near the kitchen counter; it was cherry red and melting in the blaze. "And you know why, don't you?"

"I do?" The heat was a living thing gnawing at his skin, smoke and the smell of charnel fires were making his eyes and nose water. His hair was dry and crackling as if it was ablaze already. How could they say this was-

"Yes! Oh, you're so smart, but you can be so blind when it's right in front of your nose. Huh, no wonder you need glasses to read." Meiran actually stomped her foot. Wufei thought that was a very improbable gesture for her to make, and a sudden nudge of doubt made him tense.

"I won't tell you to listen to your feelings because you're so frightened of them and where they might lead you, you've completely locked them away!" Meiran was shouting now to cover the howling noise that was shaking the very air; the colony had breached.

"I'm no coward, woman!" Wufei's voice thundered even over the noise. A few feet away, Quatre fumbled and dropped the phone.

"Yes you are but that's besides the point and you should be using that brain of yours you're so proud of instead!" Meiran shouted back in one single breath. "Where did all this start? It started here! Can't you see? Think! _When_ did it start?!"

Start...?

Wufei's mouth opened, but nothing came out.

"Yes, finally you see." Meiran blew out her cheeks. The noise was small but perfectly audible in the thunderous silence. Wufei glanced around in surprise. The flames had frozen still in the act of devouring his home - the workshop and his colony, they were both his home, even when he didn't want to admit it. The fire was motionless and silent as it reached out towards the breach leading into the eternal cold of space.

"Four weeks. The nightmares. Symptoms...Justice. There's no justice. Guilt," Wufei mumbled, trying to shove his tired mind through its conclusions. So many threads, and all of them caught into a horrible knot at the center where his feelings were coiled. That was the problem. That's why he'd been blind to the coincidence of-

"Yes, you're almost there." Meiran snorted. "Took you long enough."

"Don't rub it in, woman," Wufei growled. Quatre, who was standing in front of Wufei, blinked several times at that. He hadn't noticed Meiran standing next to him. "I was distracted."

Meiran nodded. "Yeah, your own feelings - the ones you won't admit to - got caught in the mix. That was accidental, but it almost undid you. You'll have to do something about that one day, Wufei. But in the meantime, don't try to think about it. It'll be faster if you take a page out of Heero's book, and act instead. Don't try to find the answers on your own. You know where to look for them."

"You're right. Thank you, wife."

"Er, you're welcome." Quatre's grin was forced and rather lopsided. He was tugging gently at Wufei's arm and speaking slowly. "Look, why don't you lie down again, okay? You're swaying, I'm afraid you might fall and hurt yourself. And Wufei? Heero would like you to give me your gun. Just temporarily."

"My gun?" Wufei's hand automatically checked his Luger in its shoulder holster. Quatre's hands flew away and he fell back a few steps into a defensive crouch, eyes wary.

Meiran snorted. "He's nice, and I'm sure he's very sensible, but he doesn't know what we know. Keep the gun, Wufei. I don't think you'll need it, but you never know."

"You're right," Wufei agreed.

Quatre, looking immensely relieved, straightened up and walked towards Wufei with his hand outstretched. Wufei waited until he was in reach and then shoved him back with all his strength. Quatre landed with an 'Oomph!' on the dojo floor several feet away - the springboards should absorb the impact, he'd be okay. Wufei dashed to the garage door and hauled it open with one huge thrust.

A weight hit his back, and Quatre made a creditable effort to bring him to his knees and twist his arm into a lock. The businessman was a good fighter, for someone who'd had self-defense classes for a few years. Put a gun in his hand and he was quite deadly. But when Quatre had told Heero that it would be insane for him to try to disarm Wufei, that had been a fair and honest assessment of their comparative abilities. Heero had a chance of disarming Wufei and stopping him, but Heero wasn't here. He'd left.

Hadn't he?

No, of course not! Heero was at work, it was only early evening.

Wufei almost let Quatre get him into that arm lock as he swayed with trembling relief. Heero hadn't left him, and he was on his way home. Heero was coming! But Wufei couldn't wait for his partner, not now that the colony was breached. He batted away his friend's attempts and shoved again. This time Quatre landed on the concrete of the tool shop with a grunt of pain.

"Stay down," Wufei ordered sharply as he grabbed his bike, then remembered to wrench the keys out of Heero's first. "I don't want to hurt you. But I have to go finish with the investigation before the colony is destroyed."

"Wufei, don't!"

"I'll be back in a couple of hours. Tell Heero not to worry, okay?"

Whatever Quatre said to that was lost in the growl of the motor as Wufei shot out of the garage.


	34. Breaking Storm, Part IV

"A mountain of knives and a sea of fire"  
\---Chinese saying

 

The sky was burning, but the flames were still caught in that frozen moment of realization. He should have time to reach his destination before the breach sucked the oxygen out of the air. There was a lot of oxygen to suck out after all. The bike was alive beneath him, growling, and Wufei smiled in simple exhilaration. This felt good. He hoped he and Heero could go to the track again, once he'd fixed that breach and put out the fire. Well, no, this fire could not be put out. But he shouldn't be here. What was done was done. He just had to make sure that Heero, Quatre, Susan and himself were not here when the colony finally surrendered to its fate. None of them should die with A0206.

Terrible monsters, born of fire and chaos, tried to block his way, but the bike dodged them and left them behind, honking terrible threats at his back. Wufei laughed. But then he forced himself to sober up. This was serious. He had to pull himself together. This wasn't a game, this was life and death, and he had to find the knot between the two and cut it.

He couldn't feel his feet as he ran up the stairs, and his panting was distant, as if someone else was running, gasping and breathless, a few feet behind him.

"Wufei?!" Susan stared at him as she opened her door. She was pretty in a traditional red dress, linen with silk sleeves and front. Wufei smiled - he thought he smiled, but his face was still numb from the searing heat of the fire, sweat cold on his brow.

"Hi, Susan. I...can we talk? I really...really need to..."

He didn't know if he managed to finish that sentence or not. He was sitting on a Chinese couch made of delicate dark wood, covered in thin red cushions embroidered with dragons. Susan had brought her own furniture from her home in Strasbourg, to make the small temporary apartment comfortable. As Wufei watched, the embroidered dragons writhed and blew flames at him, but they couldn't burn him; he hadn't been on the colony when it had died.

"Wufei?" Susan was before him, holding out a cup. His cup. The pretty eggshell-gray cup. "What did you want to talk about? You can tell me anything."

"Your cups are very pretty. Are they authentic?"

Susan stared at him as if he'd gone mad. Yes, he was getting a lot of that. Behind Susan, Meiran was looking at him a bit oddly too. He was glad she'd hopped on to the bike as he was leaving. She would be gone soon, he knew. He was glad she was with him as long as she could be.

"Well...yes." Susan sounded a bit annoyed, though she was hiding it well. "Hand made in China."

"Hand made. Knew it. They're not quite identical. You can't get the paintwork quite the same when you make them by hand. Yours has these little speckles down one side. The side you try to never turn towards me."

Susan said nothing. Behind her, Meiran's eyes widened. "Huh! You're right! Makes sense, like that she could tell the cups apart, and always give you the right one. Hah, you really are a clever brat, husband." She was grinning.

"What did you use?" Wufei ignored her and concentrated on Susan.

"What do you mean, Wu-" Susan gasped and her delicate cup hit the carpeted red floor, spilling tea in a circle. The liquid was a deep crimson splash like spilled blood. Why did she look so frightened? Oh, right, he'd pulled the gun from its holster.

"What did you use, Susan?"

"I- I don't- Wufei, you're not in your normal state of mind." Susan's voice was forcing itself to be calm as she took a step back.

"No. No, I'm not. You'd certainly know all about that, wouldn't you? What have you been giving me, Susan?" He picked up his cup with his free hand and sniffed. "The Yulien Green Mountain tea again. Strong flavor. Is that how you mask it when you give me a stronger dose? What's this one supposed to do? Kill me? Or just drive me completely insane?"

Susan stared at him. No, not quite at him, he thought. What she was seeing, only she knew.

"Sit down, Susan. You wanted me to talk. Desperately," he added, lifting the cup towards her in illustration before carefully putting it back down on the table. "What was it you wanted me to talk about? What's driven you to this extreme? I'm fairly sure you're an otherwise rational woman."

Susan sat down like a puppet, staring. "You don't know?" she whispered. She sounded...amazed, and offended, and hurt.

"I can make an educated guess, but I'd rather you tell me instead." Wufei was tired. He wanted to cut the crap and go to sleep, possibly forever. "Why have you been systematically giving me some hallucinogen ever since we started this case together?"

She licked her lips, gaze flickering to meet his, then glance at the cup, then towards the door as if judging her chances. Wufei sighed and continued to talk, voice calm and precise, making sure she realized she couldn't get him to doubt his own conclusions. He wanted the truth from her, now.

"You've been building up the dosage like a professional. Small to start with, and mainly before I left in the evening, so the worst effects were while I was asleep in the form of nightmares. Then you increased the dosage." Susan seemed to sink lower in the chair at every carefully measured sentence, eyes widening. "It's when the Wen family tried to bury the investigation that you started really hitting me with the high doses. That's when I actually started hallucinating. Why? That wasn't my fault, Susan-"

"Justice." The word was bitten off. "And it was for nothing, wasn't it. You still feel no guilt. You don't even know why!"

Wufei stared at her owlishly. "Guilt? I have a lot of guilt. And regrets, and problems, and feelings twisted up inside. I've been meeting a lot of them up close and personal these past four weeks, since we started our investigation. Which guilt in particular did you-"

"My name is Wu Shu Shen."

"So that _is_ your real name? I was wondering-"

"My father was Wu Bo Rong "

"Oh."

"Yes. Oh."

"You said you came from another cluster in L5." Wufei suddenly felt a bit stupid; her father was Master Li's right hand man and Wufei had met him frequently from the moment of his marriage to Meiran until the end of his colony. Had he met Susan before?! He'd never paid much attention to the women surrounding the men of his clan. And he'd pretty much kept to himself, like the stuck-up unsocial brat he was.

"The place I told you I came from is where I finished my studies in law. But I grew up with your wife, Chang Wu Fei." Susan's voice was the lawyer's again. She was making her case against him. Wufei vaguely wondered if she'd forgotten about his gun. He was having a hard time remembering it himself. "When my mother died, and my father was busy with Master Li's work, Meiran's grandmother raised me. Meiran and I were friends."

Wufei glanced at Meiran, but her eyes were closed as if listening attentively, and she showed no signs of being affected.

"When she died...because of you...I-...my father decided to send me away. I was..." Susan's mouth worked helplessly as the charges of accusation against him suddenly became personal. "I was grieving. He was afraid I would dishonor him by attacking you. I had several years ahead on my studies. He sent me to finish my barrister studies on another colony. So I wasn't there. I wasn't there when you destroyed him and our home."

Wufei sighed. "Susan- Shu Shen. You already know what happened. I-"

"You should have surrendered!" Susan was still perfectly controlled, her voice the majestic ringing voice of a prosecutor reducing an alibi to shreds. Her eyes were blind. "Master Li hit the button and died, those men made him do it, the ones I spent months hunting, and they are all dead - but you! You are alive, Chang Wu Fei, when you were the one they were looking for. You're alive and well, and working for Treize's aide, Une, and you show _no guilt_. No guilt at all. I was there when you gave your testimony. You were sad. Regretful. But you were not guilty!"

"So you decided to ask Une for my help in your investigation. And give my demons a little helping hand." Wufei shook his head, and that made him dizzy. The dragons he was sitting on were gnawing at his flesh. The cup on the table had a small snake swimming in the tea, and things were scurrying just out of sight, running over his hands when he wasn't looking, making his fingers twitch. He had to finish this quickly. "What did you give me, Susan?"

"Something I paid a lot of money for almost a year ago." Susan waved a hand dismissively. "Some tool the OZ interrogators formulated. You can find small amounts on the black market. I knew I'd need something like this sooner or later. I knew that someone, somewhere, would not feel the full horror of what they'd done, and I wanted them to. I...very much...wanted them to..." Susan's eyes suddenly focused on him, maybe for the first time. He thought she looked briefly lost. This was supposed to be the culmination of a year of working for her ideal of justice. A calm, exhausted seventeen-year-old probably did not measure up to the huge, faceless Evil she'd been hunting down for months now. Reality never measured up to people's obsessions. It was much more complex, too. And sometimes it pointed guns at you.

"Woman, you wanted my conscience to torture me for our home's destruction, but I have so many…I made so many mistakes, I have killed so many people, done so many things that I can never hope to compensate for even if I died ten times over..."

He stopped talking. What was the point? For him, the end of A0206 had been one blow among others from fate and his enemies. One more failure, one more guilt, one more thing he desperately wished he could change. His mind had been ripped apart this past month by his weaknesses, his hidden feelings, his guilt, and that had only been one ghost among others. For Susan, though, it had been the murder of her father and the destruction of her home and family, the single most traumatic event that had derailed her life and sent her on this quest for a culprit. He wondered if it had fastened on him only because all the other possible targets were dead.

Words were useless between them. They were not now, or ever, talking about the same thing.

He couldn't even be angry at her. In fact, he'd rather liked her, admired her. And she was even more lost than he was. No, the demons he'd faced these past four weeks had been of his own making, she had merely been instrumental in their apparition.

"Just tell me what you gave me, Susan," Wufei asked heavily. "I need to-"

A pounding on the door made them both jump. Wufei's finger tightened instinctively on the trigger - had the fire started again? Had the breach continued to open? No, he needed more time!

"Miss Wu! Miss Wu!"

Heero?!

More pounding. "Miss Wu, are you in? It's Agent Yuy! Chang's bike is out front, have you seen him?!"

"Help!" Susan screamed and leapt back to duck behind the kitchen counter. Wufei could have shot her twice before she got to cover, but there was really not much point. She wasn't dangerous.

A huge crash from the front door, and then Heero burst into the small living room, gun drawn.

Gun! Wufei was crouching by the couch, pointing his own weapon towards the threat before his mind could react.

Heero! Heero?!

Blue eyes wide, gun trained on Wufei instinctively -

_Was_ this Heero? Or one more nightmare to torture him?!

One more dream - Heero - four weeks - nightmares - violence, passion-

"Chang. Put down that gun." Heero's eyes were wide with alarm but his voice was perfectly neutral.

\- companion, rival-

"You don't understand...it's her fault-"

\- partner, torturer -

"Chang-"

"She's been -"

\- a source of help, warmth, scorn, contempt, pain and pleasure, in nightmare after nightmare-

"Chang, you're not rational. Put the gun down now!"

Heero was aiming at his shoulder, Wufei realized. Just like Heero, not to take the easy way out, even at the risk of his own life. A normal person, faced with a raving and very dangerous armed lunatic, would have nailed Wufei in the chest or head already.

Icy realization trickled down his spine, knotted in his gut. This...this was the real Heero? Wufei was aiming at- but the Luger wouldn't move. Couldn't move. Wufei's overstressed body and mind were not letting him-

"Heero...get out of the way," Wufei whispered, desperately.

No, no, no...but his finger tightened on the trigger. Whatever was left of his rational mind was screaming at him to put down his weapon; was begging Heero to fire, chest shot, save himself - but the dragons had crawled under Wufei's skin, and were pulling his sinews like the strings of a puppet. Too many nightmares, he couldn't tell what was real, what was a dream, he just, he just wanted it to _stop-_

His world had narrowed down to Heero and the barrel of his weapon. The flames had winked out, he was no longer standing in his colony under a breach, there was just him and Heero - real? Dream? But he was still aware enough to sense Susan dart from behind the counter and run towards the door.

Wufei's finger tensed, the trigger creaked - I can't let her go - I can't shoot Heero - I can't-

“Just a minute, Miss Wu,” someone said in a familiar voice.

There was a squeak and Susan stumbled back into his line of sight, nearly bumping into Heero.

"Heero, put away your weapon." Quatre. That was Quatre. He sounded calm, almost detached.

Heero's eyes narrowed, raking Wufei's face, his stance, judging how likely Wufei was to shoot if he removed the means of retaliation. Wufei, snared by too many conflicting thoughts and emotions, just stared back, unable to move, to do anything except wait for his partner to act first.

"Heero. Now." Definitely Quatre. It was the gentle order of someone who didn't expect people to obey him because he dominated the situation, or wanted to, but only because he was right, even when he didn't like it. Even Heero obeyed the quiet certainty of that voice. He slowly lowered the barrel of his gun; despite everything it had still only been pointing at Wufei's shoulder. Then he took a step back, ready to dodge if Wufei fired anyway.

"Here, Heero, hold her." Quatre propelled Susan, who'd been trying to move around him again, at Heero, who caught her wrist instinctively and placed himself between her and Wufei's weapon. No, no Heero, she's not worth it, not worth risking your life, neither of us are...

"Wufei?" Quatre's voice was gentle. He was moving towards Wufei slowly but without any hesitation. Heero hissed in alarm, but Wufei only blinked. Quatre...Quatre hadn't appeared in too many of his dreams. Was this real?

"Wufei, please give me the gun. Heero, put yours down on the counter. Oh, thanks." Wufei had reversed his grip on the Luger to hand it to Quatre by the barrel. Winner was, on the balance of probability, most likely not a dream, and as such it would be a good deal safer to give him the gun than wave it around. Especially if Heero was real too. Dream Heero's reactions were completely up to whatever Wufei's sick mind decided, but the real Heero had been trained to react a certain way to irrational people waving weapons around. It'd be a pity to get shot now; he'd only just recovered from his car accident.

Heero was staring at the Luger in Quatre's hands, then at Wufei, then back at the Luger again. There was an expression on his face that Wufei had never seen before. It looked like he'd been shot, and for a terrified instant Wufei thought he saw blood on Heero's chest and an overwhelming horror made him shake. He looked quickly at Quatre again. No, his friend didn't look upset, and Quatre would certainly be a bit more perturbed if Wufei had killed Heero. Wufei snuck another glance at his partner who still looked dazed, but the blood was gone. Heero's Glock was pointing down at the floor, dangling forgotten from his hand.

Susan was twisting in Heero's grip. "Let me go! He's gone insane! He came here - threatened me! Said a lot of crazy things-"

"She's been putting something in my tea," Wufei interrupted dully. "She wouldn't tell me what, though. She said it was some drug OZ had developed for interrogations. Yes, I think there's some in there," Wufei added as he noticed Quatre glance down at the cup on the table. "She's been hitting me with high doses lately, particularly this afternoon. I was about to stop working with her. She would no longer have an opportunity to-"

"He's insane! You're not going to believe him?!" Susan was doing a great imitation of a hysterical, frightened and very innocent woman who'd been assaulted by an armed maniac. Wufei, who knew her, thought it was a very unlikely thing for her to pretend to be, but Quatre and Heero didn't know her that well.

On the other hand, they did know Wufei, and neither of them was stupid. They were both staring thoughtfully at the cup on the table. Susan's scream of unfeigned agony brought everyone's attention back to her. Heero was squeezing her wrist so hard her hand had gone white, with red welts beneath his fingers.

"Heero." Quatre's voice was reproving, though he looked a bit dazed. Heero glanced down at his own hand as if startled by what it was doing, then he eased up, though he kept a firm grip on her.

"We need to-" Heero started to say something, but he also gestured with his other hand in Wufei's direction - the hand holding the gun. Wufei fell back like a hound at bay, fear strangling him again; a dozen Heeros in a dozen dreams threatening him, hurting him, lashing him with words, or shooting him out of hand. Heero froze, and then carefully put the gun on the counter, sliding it out of Susan's reach. The woman was whimpering, her face white, trying to pull her wrist from his grasp; his fingers had tightened again.

"Heero." Quatre was a core of reason in the insanity and noise, most of which was thundering between Wufei's ears. "I'll take care of Wufei. You watch the suspect and call in a team. A forensics team," Quatre added, looking pointedly at the cup on the table. "Don't worry, I'm not taking him to a hospital. I doubt they can cope. I'll go to Ops, Sally should still be there. Is that okay, Wufei?"

It sounded reasonable. Wufei glanced around. Meiran was sitting at the kitchen counter, watching Susan and Heero. She glanced up briefly and nodded. It'd be okay. Wufei really needed to go see Sally, and Meiran would watch over Heero and make sure Susan didn't try to trick him. Wufei was starting to come down from whatever drug high he was on; he was aware that a lot of what he'd seen this evening was a hallucination. The flames had all gone, and nothing looked burnt. But Meiran was real. She was dead, he knew that. But in his culture, the ghosts of loved ones had the power to protect their family, and his heart told him this was the truth. He gave her a smile of pure gratitude and Meiran grinned back and made shooing gestures. Wufei let Quatre lead him from the small, temporary apartment where Susan's hate had stewed.

The air outside felt good, though something weighed on his shoulders. It was the look Heero gave him as Wufei let Quatre lead him away. Confused. Maybe even slightly...hurt? Of course, Heero wouldn't know that Wufei had left Meiran to watch over him. Wufei hadn't deserted his partner willfully. But he really needed to go see Sally and get his head straight again...Shit, he'd made quite a mess of things.

"No one blames you," Quatre whispered - he was driving quickly, casually burning red lights with a few muttered curses in Arabic towards the reckless drivers getting in his way. Wufei blinked, and realized with some relief that he had a seatbelt on and that he was clinging to the car door's armrest. He didn't remember climbing into the car. "I blame myself. I should- we should have realized. We knew you weren't in your right state of mind, but we never thought-"

"Well, neither did I, and I was the one there. I should have recognized the symptoms. And the questions she kept asking...even some of the questions towards the suspects were probably aimed at me. Stupid," Wufei sighed, closing his eyes. "I'm sorry, I've been very stupid."

"Yes," Sally muttered, looking both scared and furious.

Wufei blinked. He was sitting bare-chested in the Ops clinic, and Sally was writing things down on a clipboard as if she wanted to stab it.

"So you were saying, dry mouth? Nausea? Dizziness? Increased respiration and heart rate?" Sally looked at him closely then grimaced. "A tendency to lose time?"

"Er-"

"Hallucinations?"

"I thought they were dreams," he muttered.

"They probably would seem like it to start with, when she was giving you the occasional light dose, but any fool knows that violent nightmares, insomnia and night-time sweats for over a week should prompt an immediate trip to a doctor," Sally ground out. She was also grinding the pen against the clipboard. Quatre moved forward to gently touch her hand and she turned and stomped away.

"I think she's mad at me," Wufei whispered. "I was going to see her tomorrow. Or when I got back from-...I forget."

"Don't worry about it, she'll get over it." Quatre smiled. He looked worried too, but he hid it better than Sally.

"Do you know what Susan used yet?"

"No, but I guess we'll find out," Sally grumbled, approaching with a syringe. She swabbed Wufei's arm a bit more roughly than necessary, but she was gentle as she slipped the needle in and collected some blood into several little tubes. Quatre was right at Wufei's side. Probably in case he became violent, Wufei realized, trying to feel offended. He had better control than that-

Oh shit.

"Quatre? Did I- did I really point a gun at Heero? Or was that also in my head?" Wufei's voice was shaking.

"Well..." Quatre glanced at Sally, who shrugged, eyes sad.

"I did, didn't I? Fuck. He's going to be furious."

"I think worried is more accurate," Quatre sighed. "He knows you were not in your right mind, Wufei."

"Hee- I mean, Yuy, he's not really affected by drugs, he won't understand-" Wufei's breath was starting to hiss through his lungs, he was sweating and shaking. Sally looked at him sharply.

"Yes, well, you never saw him under the Zero system the first time he used it," Quatre snorted. "I was at the other end of his big-ass gun that time, and let me tell you he's a lot scarier than even you are."

"Yes, but he beat it on his own..." Wufei's throat was so dry, it hurt.

"I kind of helped him," Quatre drawled, crossing his arms over his chest. Wufei thought absently that the words and the gesture seemed to belong more to Duo than to a normally poised Quatre. It triggered a memory of some very strange dreams he'd had, about Quatre, Trowa and Duo. Wufei frowned, and shook his head. And nearly fell off the examination table. Quatre steadied him.

"I should have realized...my own subconscious did. It was trying to tell me about Susan for a while now, I think. Too bad it didn't speak up a bit more clearly," Wufei muttered.

"There, I sent those off." Sally came back, wiping her hands on a paper towel.

"Can you tell what Susan used from my blood samples?"

"No. We'll wait for forensics to search her apartment. I'm guessing I know. A distant relative of ketamine, developed for interrogations, normally at the doses she gave you at the end. The suspect does his own interrogation."

"Symptoms?"

"Hallucinations, the suspect’s hidden guilt and feelings dragged to the fore. Confusion, heightened aggression, and a release of inhibitions, making it more likely the victim just come right out with what he's thinking instead of hiding it. It's a very effective tool. If the suspect doesn't give the interrogators what they need during his waking nightmares, his resistance is broken fairly quickly anyway, from stress and sleep deprivation, and then he's docile to questioning once the drug is stopped."

"Why did you take my blood?" Wufei stared at her, feeling the shape of something she was leaving unsaid.

Sally bit her lip, and then explained softly: "Used for any length of time...that kind of drug causes organ damage. I sent your blood off for chemical analysis. We'll look for the kind of breakdown proteins that signals injury to certain parts of the body."

"Which parts?"

"This drug was developed late in the war, and I don't know its effects all that-"

"Which parts, Sally?"

"I don't know," she whispered. "But liver and/or kidneys would be my first guess. Maybe your stomach. I'll check you for ulcers in a couple of days, you might have lesions. Heart, lungs, from stress..."

"Brain? How is this likely to affect me long-term?"

"Neurologically, there should be no long-term damage or dependency. As for the psyche...Normally it can be pretty bad. It is torture, after all." Sally looked him right in the eye. "But you're a strong man, Chang Wufei. You didn't break, and I think your mind is fundamentally okay. I think you can beat the after effects too. Which are likely to include more nightmares as your sleep patterns reassert themselves, as well as the consequences of any trauma: depression, stress, black-outs, paranoia, sleep disorders, delocalized pain, the works. I am going to have to prescribe complete rest for a month, no stress - _don't say it, Chang!_ " Sally shouted as Wufei started to protest. "After your lapse in judgment in not coming to me at the first full-blown hallucination, I could pull your badge!" Wufei subsided quickly.

"Right," Sally humphed. "Make that three weeks, and then we'll do an evaluation. We'll also see what the blood samples say too. And you need sleep. I'll give you something to knock you out for the next twelve hours, no dreams guaranteed. Your body needs to recuperate, as well as your mind. Then we'll see. Quatre, can you and Heero stay with him? He needs to be watched. You pilots have odd reactions to drugs. If he starts to show signs of having hallucinations, or sleepwalking or anything, you have to wake him up, okay?"

"No problem," Quatre's hand was warm on Wufei's bare shoulder, pushing him gently off the table. Wufei allowed Sally to help him on with his shirt and jacket, and then he staggered to the door.

A night without nightmares. Sounded like an impossible dream, really.

He wasn't worried about organ damage. He knew his body well. It was stressed, but he didn't think it had been injured beyond repair. His mind was solid. He'd been trained to resist this sort of thing, and Susan's efforts had been mild compared to a full-blown session courtesy of OZ. He'd work on Sally to get out on the field as soon as possible. He wanted to put all this out of his mind. He wanted to be fighting side by side with Heero again.

Back to normal. Heero would probably be angry at him - stupid not to have recognized the symptoms of the drug, he had had plenty of clues. And he'd ended up pointing a gun at Heero, after spending a month biting his head off when Heero was only - only trying to help.

At least Wufei had not said anything off in his delirium; he could tell that much from Heero's reactions to date. Wufei hadn't said anything that might make Heero reconsider their arrangement. Not mentioned the dreams where Heero had been his companion and friend, instead of his partner and rival, and how those had hurt worse than the nightmares because of the moment he woke up...

"Forensics should confirm what Susan used," Quatre muttered, sliding Wufei's jacket off. They were back already? Oh yes, he remembered Quatre walking behind him as he climbed the stairs, ready to steady him if he needed it. "They'll make sure we have all the evidence we need."

"Evidence for what? I'm not prosecuting her," Wufei told him dully.

The holster Quatre had removed from Wufei's shoulder tumbled numbly from his hands. "What?!"

"It's not...entirely her fault. She...it's so hard, Quatre. What we did this past month. Looking for justice but not being able to apply-"

"You had nothing to do with your colony's destruction!" Quatre stared at him. Wufei looked away, troubled, and fumbled his shirt off.

"...That's not entirely true. If I'd surrendered-"

Two hands caught him by the shoulders, straightening him from the slump he'd not even noticed. "Do not blame yourself!"

"What if she was right? She was fighting for Justice after all. Maybe I'm the one who's wrong. Maybe I should feel much guiltier for- "

"Wufei," Quatre took a deep breath, and released it slowly. "If she wanted to prosecute someone for destroying a colony she had a much better person to attack than you." Quatre's eyes were direct, not hiding the pain there. "She failed, Wufei. I know that we ask these people - the War Crimes Committee investigators - we ask them the impossible. We ask them to look into the depths of horror and remain detached, impartial. Fair. We ask them to uphold an impossibly high standard and they accept. They are greater heroes than the five of us ever were. We fought to end a war. They fight - put their sanities on the line - so that it never happens again. And they get little, if no, recognition for it.

"But Susan failed." Quatre's voice was intense, though he spoke softly. "I am the last person on Earth or in space who can blame her. I made pretty much the same mistake. But that means nothing. That we asked her to do something so hard, that she suffered so much...we each have to stand by our own actions in the end. She was supposed to stand for Justice, and she fell into personal revenge."

"I think I may have pushed her," Wufei whispered. Was Susan right? Did he deserve to have a life, especially this one he'd chosen and enjoyed, when so many of his clan had died? When Meiran had died? And how about his own quest for justice...hadn't that been only revenge...?

"No. You didn't. I think she fell long before she met you. And if it hadn't been you, it would have been someone else. That's why it was revenge, Wufei: she just wanted blood. Anyone's." Quatre was whispering. His hands were warm on Wufei's bare shoulders, pressing the skin, bringing him back to reality. Quatre leaned forward until he was murmuring directly into Wufei's ears; his words for Wufei alone. "You know, in your heart, that she was wrong. I'm just as torn up inside as you, Wufei. I feel just as unworthy to judge her as you feel. But there is a line between justice and revenge and she crossed it. Let her go, Wufei. Come back to us, and let her go."

Come back to...us?

Wufei teetered on the brink of something. An abyss in his mind, like the one into which Susan had tumbled.

He held back. But the lifeline holding him fast felt so tenuous. Come back to us...? Who was 'us'?

Wufei barely felt Quatre take off the rest of his clothes and guide him towards his bed.

"Here you go." Quatre smoothed the covers over him.

Wufei turned onto his stomach and sunk his cheek in the pillow.

"You can go now, Winner," he muttered.

"I won't let you crash without someone to watch your back, even if it wasn't Sally's orders." Quatre smiled down at him. "I'll stick around a few minutes. Heero should be following us, he can take over."

"No. He'll be at the crime scene, taking charge. Or following through with the arrest," Wufei corrected him absently, his eyes drifting shut.

"Oh, I'm sure he'll be along. I don't think you quite appreciate how bad you look, Wufei. You gave us quite the scare. I think he'll want to be sure you're okay."

Wufei laughed, a little wisp of a chuckle. "He won't be home for hours, Winner." He smiled at Quatre's sudden frown. "Trust me...I know."

I know...Back to normal. Back to silence. But it hurts...

Quatre undid the thong holding his hair bound, and he eased if from the crunch it had set in with his fingers in a gesture Heero would never stoop to.

"So tired..." Wufei whispered, the words slipping from his lips of their own volition.

"Rest. The medication Sally gave you should knock you out. No dreams." Quatre's voice was soft, but his eyes were wary as if realizing the words might not have had an obvious interpretation. "You okay?"

"Tired...so hard."

Quatre frowned. His fingers dropped from Wufei's hair to rub his temple, soothe his brow. Wufei blinked, but his vision kept blurring and gods he couldn't stop talking.

"It's so hard...I don't want to fail him but I'm so weak sometimes."

Quatre's fingers froze on his skin. Wufei hated himself for the way he ached for that gentle touch.

"You're not weak, Wufei. Come on, you're the toughest man I know." Quatre's mouth twisted into what might have been an attempt at an encouraging grin. "You resisted weeks of torture, you arrested your interrogator yourself. And I don't know anybody else who can keep up with-" blue eyes widened.

He knew. He understood. Well...it was Quatre. Wufei felt too tired to be afraid or ashamed. And this was Quatre. This was the person who had taught a hard-headed L5 warrior the crucial difference between pity and compassion. It was okay to talk to Quatre.

"I try to keep up with him. To become more like him but- I...I'm sorry." His vision blurred even more but his eyes were dry, of course. All the drugs in the world couldn't rip that much control from him; he had the best master on Earth and in space in that regard. "It's so hard sometimes. I don't want to let him down, to burden him with my needs, but I...these past weeks I wanted...I needed...He'd be disgusted with me if he knew I was so weak, that I wanted more from him than he already gives me, but I really wanted a- a f-friend to talk to-"

Quatre's eyes were narrowed, and bright as he crouched beside the bed. His face was firm. "No, you didn't."

Wufei tried to focus. "Huh?"

"I was here. I was your friend. So was Susan, or at least you thought so. You reached out to us a bit. You didn't want him to be your friend, you wanted him to be your lover."

Wufei shied away from the touch on his cheek and the word. That word was forbidden. "N-no. We-we don't have that. That's not- I knew you wouldn't understand."

"You may be right about that." Quatre nodded. His voice was neutral, but his eyes were sad.

"We just share- we- we just relieve tension. It's not-...we're partners. We're not-"

"Wufei."

"I'm so tired..." He was drifting, eyes nearly closed. "I'm too tired to fight anymore...to...I...it can't be like that. It's not...it's not what we have. He chose me because I understood that. Because we could be partners and - and screw each other and not get any feelings involved. I-"

"Wufei..." Quatre looked like he was fighting himself. He licked his lips and then said, tentatively: "Maybe you should consider-"

"No!" Wufei jerked his head from the pillow and glared, though Quatre's image was blurred and his sentence far from finished. "No, he's - he makes me the best warrior I could ever be. I- I was only half-alive before- before coming to Brussels. I will not throw that away."

"This is killing you." Quatre's voice was carefully dispassionate, neither condemning nor pitying, and for that Wufei was thankful, though the words burned.

"Wrong, Winner, it's my failings that are killing me." His head sank back into the pillow.

"Wufei, you're not making sense," Quatre whispered, then added in a mutter: "I think you stopped making sense a while back."

"...will become stronger. I'll get over this. Don't need it. Won't break us apart. I can live-"

"Without tenderness? Affection? Understanding? Someone on your side instead of being some kind of perpetual...rival or something? Can you really live like that for long? Can you even call that living?" Quatre struck like a true swordsman, a blade of unwanted words slicing into every aspect of Wufei's pain.

"I...he understands me...when we're in battle. We understand each other. We have an arrangement."

"God, Wufei..."

"I just need to be stronger. He does it. He doesn't need anything. Well, anything like that. But he does need me to work with him, watch his back. To be his partner. I'm the only one he trusts with that." Wufei smiled with tired pride. He had that. And it was everything that mattered. It was up to him to keep it. "I just need to be more like him, focus on -"

Quatre suddenly tensed, his fingers tightened on Wufei's neck briefly as he glanced quickly over his shoulder. Without a word he got up and left.

Wufei stared blindly at the suddenly empty space. He heard the door to his room close firmly, but he couldn't even turn his head to look. It didn't make sense, to think that Quatre had left. Actually, the thought of Quatre marching out in disgust at Wufei's stupid outpouring was just too alien to his comprehension.

Then Quatre was at his bedside again, kneeling. He was flushed and his eyes were bright with something that looked like anger, but when he caught Wufei's glance the expression disappeared to be replaced by one of quiet compassion. He leaned his chin on his folded hands on the edge of the bed, face a few inches from Wufei's.

"Look." He was whispering. It felt strangely comforting. "You need to sleep. We'll talk about this tomorrow."

Wufei smiled sadly. "No, we won't," he whispered back.

Quatre's eyes dulled with pain. "Wufei…I…I'll always be here for you if you-"

Wufei held his gaze, the smile, then slowly turned his head on the pillow and dropped off into unconsciousness. He felt, just as he let go, Quatre's hand slip into his. His presence, his touch, more than Sally's pill, would keep the monsters at bay. He wouldn't have asked Quatre to do that, but he didn't have to.

He wanted that from Heero like a piece was missing from his chest.

And here, finally, worn down to the bone...he was no longer so sure he could live without it anymore.


	35. Chinese Poles, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Chinese Poles": An acrobatic act, evolved from an ancient military technique to allow soldiers to cross enemy walls. Involves balancing on two upright bamboo poles. Once balance is lost it is virtually impossible to regain, and the more efforts made to do so, the worse the loss of equilibrium becomes.

"Like a mouse trying to pull a turtle out of his shell; don't know where to begin"  
\--- Chinese saying

 

Wufei awoke in total darkness. His slight gasp of surprise was muffled; he must be inside a building. It smelled musty and disused, with a slight taint to the air that made his skin crawl. And there was the sound. Soft skittering, little clicks.

He had a torch in his hand. He flicked it on without thinking.

And choked.

He knew where he was.

Somalia. OZ had cordoned off the route out of Kisimayo. He'd gone to ground in a bombed out area.

The bodies were reduced to dry bone and brownish gristle. The flies no longer wanted them. The rats had taken over, gnawing for marrow.

Wufei felt his gorge rise. Beetles were still crawling around one of the corpse's torn jeans as well as all around him. As he lay there, petrified, a few ran across the back of his hand, up his forearm, over his chest and thighs. The rats had turned and were eyeing him, eyes little green specks of refracted light as they easily dodged around the torch's beam and scurried, feet pattering -

He hissed and fought against the musty air, so thick and cloying that it held him pinned down. Freeing himself, he sat up abruptly.

Reality fractured into kaleidoscopic shards: he was in his room - but there was a slight wiggle out of the corner of his eyes as the beetles darted out of sight. The sound of the rats had been real! He spun - he realized he was sitting up in bed but the sense of danger was overpowering that distant observation. He glanced around wildly, looking for the source of the noise.

Heero was near the opposite wall, half out of his chair, staring at Wufei. His laptop had slid towards the floor, though he'd apparently caught it before it hit; he had it pinned against his leg with his left hand. His right hand had his Glock partway out of his back belt holster.

The partners stared at each other for a few tense seconds. Heero's expression was carefully weighing. Then he must have decided Wufei wasn't going off the deep end despite his abrupt and agitated awakening. He slipped his gun back in its holster and gathered up the laptop in both hands.

"How long-" Wufei cleared his throat, which was so dry the words were a hoarse whisper. "How long have I been asleep?" He shivered, the ghostly touch of the beetles crawled along his naked spine. His skin felt tainted by the smell of old carcasses and the scurry of rats.

"About six hours." Heero straightened and moved towards the dresser. His matter-of-fact monotone was refreshingly familiar, banishing much of the dream still miring Wufei's mind.

"Six hours? I thought Sally's pill was supposed to knock me out for more than twelve," Wufei mumbled. He felt dull, numb. Except for his bladder.

Heero had frozen again, this time in the process of putting the laptop on the dresser. He was looking at Wufei in a careful, measuring way.

"Sally gave you that medication two days ago."

"What?!" Wufei croaked.

"You've been sleeping for two days. Winner and I got you out of bed yesterday for some water and six hours ago to make you eat."

That explained the bladder.

"Oh." Wufei felt a shudder run across his shoulders, making his skin goose bump like a little skitter of beetles. Heero was obviously telling the truth. But there was nothing in Wufei's memory except a huge stretch of darkness and a distant souvenir of the war, that time in Somalia he'd-...a memory of rats and bugs...Wufei found himself glaring at the laptop as Heero rapidly clicked keys, saving and terminating programs before shutting it. So that's where the skittering and pattering noises had come from.

He bit back a groan as he threw off the sheets and stood up. His head swam briefly and he caught himself against the wall. When his eyes focused again, Heero's hands were an inch away from his arm, ready to catch him.

"M'okay, just need to go to the bathroom," Wufei muttered, though he waited another three seconds before moving away from the wall's support. Heero hovered near him, but Wufei didn't condescend to notice as he made his way slowly yet steadily towards his goal.

Heero's hand stopped the bathroom door from closing. Wufei stared at his partner in puzzled silence. His brain felt like it was wearing three layers of fuzzy socks.

"Sally said that we should watch you at all times. You could be subject to black outs," Heero announced as if this was all the explanation needed.

At that Wufei came fully awake. He managed to bite back the first three responses that came to mind, and then he throttled the fourth and fifth, which weren't much more helpful, as he reminded himself that this situation was partly his own fault.

"I will leave the door unlocked," he finally said in a voice that sounded oddly neutral, as if it were still half asleep and not up to expressing all the emotions currently sizzling and popping in his brain. "If I'm not out in ten minutes - or if you hear a loud thump - you have my permission to come investigate." He made another move to close the door. The hand still held it fast. He glared at Heero, who gave him a puzzled look in return; apparently the soldier did not think that propriety rated higher than essential safety precautions. Or maybe he was thinking he'd seen it all before. Some of the old fire must have returned to Wufei's eyes, because after a few seconds his partner let the door close without further comment.

Wufei went about his business in a slight trance. Then he drank three glasses of water and glared at his reflection. He looked more tired now than he had when he'd been about to lose his mind from sleep deprivation and drug-induced hallucinations. The pillow creases on his face weren't helping. The rest was probably due to the lack of stress; his body was finally catching up. Two days. Scary to have eaten and not remember it. He'd not brushed his teeth, he'd warrant, as they felt as wooly as his brain. He filled a fourth glass of water, drank it more slowly. Two days. Sally's pill had long stopped affecting him. But he'd slept pretty well, except for that last nightmare that was due to a certain partner of his who couldn't sever his ties to his blasted laptop for more than a few hours without going into withdrawal. He really had to get around to teaching Heero meditation.

Heero...

Wufei stared at the mirror blindly as he remembered aiming at his partner, his finger tightening on the trigger. The memory felt surreal. But this, he was quite certain, had not been a nightmare.

Damn.

He poked his mind for something more constructive. It felt like prodding a bag of linen.

Wufei made a strategic decision.

Heero started slightly as Wufei wrenched the door open. He'd been leaning patiently against the wall next to the bathroom. Wufei strode right past him.

"I'm going back to bed. Wake me tomorrow."

 

 

Wufei woke, choking with raw anguish. Insane! Susan?! Poisoning him?! That was mad! Fuck, another nightmare! It had all been a nightmare. He was still having them - he was going crazy! He-

He lifted his head abruptly from the pillow as he felt/heard another presence in the room.

There was a sleeping bag on the floor, half way to the door. The occupant's back was turned towards him, but a patch of blond hair poked out, reflecting a bit of light in the dimness of early dawn.

Wufei took a deep breath, slightly shaky. His mind felt clear after the wash of adrenaline, clearer than it had all month. He touched the memories, tentatively to start with. Then, ignoring the pain, shame and guilt, he ran them through his mind slowly, like a film rewinding. It was fuzzy and occasionally out of focus, but he thought he could now distinguish what had been real these past few weeks and what had been a drug-induced hallucination. Finding out that Susan had been drugging him for some twisted revenge: reality. The house on fire, the madness of those final hours: hallucinations. Threatening to shoot Heero: reality.

Quatre was breathing slowly and regularly, deep in sleep. Wufei was fully awake now and was not surprised to see Quatre here; he remembered Sally's instructions that he be watched at all times. He also remembered waking up yesterday to the sound of Heero's laptop. Quatre and Heero must have been relaying each other.

Quatre...Wufei flinched and curled up, knees against chest, hands rubbing desperately at his forehead as if they could scrub out another memory. He remembered the essence of what he'd told Winner just before passing out. And it was definitely not a hallucination or delirium, however much he wished it had been. Wufei's mind shied away from the crack that had appeared in his soul. No. No, don't go there. Just...ignore it and it will go away. It has to. It just-

A noise made him tense. He thought it was what had woken him. Heero was moving around in the hallway. Wufei heard his partner's door close.

Wufei lay back and stared at the ceiling, something he'd done a lot of during his month of torment. First things first. He gathered his courage, his pride, and then his words. He knew what he had to do. It would sting, but it was necessary.

Finally he slipped out of bed and ghosted around Quatre, his familiarity with the room stopping any creak of floorboards. Quatre's breathing hitched and grew lighter in response to Wufei's movements, but he didn't wake. Wufei eased the door open and slipped out into the hallway.

His knock on Heero's door was very light, barely brushing the wood. This was going to be difficult enough without Winner being present. He'd deal with Quatre too, in his own time. But he owed his partner the greater debt. He opened the door without waiting for a response, confident that Heero would have heard the slight signal and would have recognized its originator.

Heero was sitting at his desk. He had several disks out, and the laptop was booting up. A protein drink rested on a stack of papers. He was looking at the door, but he didn't have his hand on his gun. Wufei hoped this was a good sign.

He glanced out of the window while he closed the door behind him. A grayish light broke the night outside; it must be around five in the morning. His usual time to get up during the past month, but it was rather early for Heero.

His partner was staring at him, his entire posture guarded. Wufei licked his lips.

"Yuy." Wufei crossed his arms over his chest - noticing absently that he could faintly feel his ribs below the padding of muscle. He didn't let the realization distract him. Get on with it, Chang. "May I have a word with you?" Might as well be polite. Maybe Heero was doing something important-

Heero didn't twitch. Wufei noticed an odd tension running through his partner's body. Well, not tension exactly. More like watchfulness. Attentiveness. It seemed oddly out of place; normally his partner expressed his few emotions bodily, especially if he was annoyed. This was more akin to the total focus Heero normally accorded to flying a Gundam or planning an arduous field mission. This wouldn't be surprising if he was still concentrating on his laptop, but Wufei was a bit surprised at finding that looked directed at him.

He took Heero's silence for permission to continue.

"I apologize for that regretful incident in Susan Wu's apartment. I knew I was under the influence of a drug, I'd deduced it by then," Wufei added that just to salvage a little bit of his pride. "I should have given my gun to Winner before leaving the workshop."

Heero stared at him.

"Actually I shouldn't haven't left at all, I should have explained myself to Quatre and yourself first. I wasn't thinking straight. But I should never have pulled my gun on you." His words sounded stiff and formal even to his own ears, but he didn't think Heero would notice, or care.

Silence.

Wufei was struggling to read his partner. For a month now, he'd been pretty far off, but he'd been so exhausted and confused that wasn't surprising. Now though, he felt clear headed and awake. But Heero's forced immobility was removing any clue that might allow him to see how his apology was being received.

No anger, he thought, a bit relieved. Just a single-minded attention that was rather unnerving. Heero was looking at him like Wufei was a bomb he was trying to disarm in his mind before his hands took the risk instead.

Oh. Of course.

"Ah. I also apologize for my temper this past month. I obviously wasn't myself."

If the silence had lasted one millisecond longer Wufei would probably have snapped; his fingers were already digging into his arms as they lay crossed over his chest. Fortunately Heero immediately answered those last words.

"I know that." Heero was matching Wufei's quiet tone. His voice was as shorn of emotions as his stance, and it, like his posture, also gave no clue as to what he might be thinking. Wufei started to frown. This didn't feel right. Heero wouldn't be able to hide anger from him, but he was clamping down on something. This utter stillness wasn't normal.

Heero turned slowly towards his desk again and stared blindly at his laptop. The silence hung, full of undefined expectations. Wufei had a feeling he had more to say.

"I should have realized," Heero finally added, still softly. His voice held no trace of self-recrimination or regret. It was a perfectly neutral.

"You and me both," Wufei snorted, leaning back against the door. Heero's words loosened some of the tension despite the odd body language that accompanied them. "I guess that will teach me not to let my guard down. Peace-time my ass. I've had more fun in an OZ cell during an interrogation."

He looked at his partner carefully. Heero appeared to be listening to his words as attentively as if he was supposed to decrypt some hidden meaning from them. Some of Wufei's tension returned.

"Yuy?" He waited until Heero turned towards him, still moving very slowly, as if making sure no extraneous body movement might escape the tight prison of his motions. Blue eyes scrutinized his face. Heero could be thinking about the chemical composition of Gundanium or planning to strangle Wufei in his sleep for all the latter knew.

"Are we good?" Wufei tried to sound straightforward, but some of his consternation made it into his voice.

Once more his words appeared to be snatched from the air, dissected and carefully analyzed.

"Yes. I realize that none of this was your fault. You were under the influence of a very clever disinhibitor. You were not accountable for your actions." The words were slow and deliberate. Heero was watching him closely, as if weighing their impact.

"Good," Wufei concluded a bit weakly. Though good wasn't what he was feeling at all. There appeared to be no hostility in Heero's manner. Wufei had seen his partner stretched out on the rack of war, his soul bared, he knew exactly what an angry Heero looked like and this wasn't it. Wufei wasn't sure how to interpret this watchfulness though-

Oh, get a clue, Chang. Last time he saw you - bar the past sixty hours he was watching you snore into your pillow - you held him at gun point. Partner or no, friend or no, Heero Yuy doesn't forget little things like that. He probably understands you were not in your right mind, but until he's one hundred percent sure that you are, he's not going to relax around you.

Maybe not even then.

No, that didn't bear thinking about. Wufei licked his lips and glanced at his partner who was still staring at him with those careful eyes as if Wufei was someone he'd never seen before who had inexplicably wormed his way inside his house. No, he couldn't bear to think that his partner would be watching him like this from now on.

But he wasn't going to press the issue. Whatever Heero said, Wufei did partly blame himself. Susan certainly deserved the biggest share of the guilt pie, but Wufei had fallen into her trap like a real cadet. He'd been trained to resist that sort of mental manipulation, but the coincidence of her scheme and the investigation on his colony's destruction, that so handily explained away his nightmares until he'd spiraled down too far, had hidden the truth from him. He felt sure that Heero, in his place, would have had the emotional detachment necessary to realize something was wrong, and he would've reacted appropriately long before things had gotten out of hand.

Well, it had been his mistake; it would be his duty to repair it. He would have to work hard on regaining his partner's trust. Wouldn't be the first time, Wufei thought with a mental huff. He wasn't about to forget war-time Heero Yuy who wouldn't let Wufei take any kind of responsibility that could compromise a joint mission. He'd shown Heero his worth back then, he'd taught him respect. Wufei didn't think this one lapse had undone all the work since then. Heero's eyes were not mistrustful or condescending, merely watchful. Judging, maybe. Waiting to see what Wufei did now. Well, he'd go about proving himself to his partner all over again. And maybe to himself as well.

Wufei nodded once, severely, the gesture both for Heero and himself. He could feel the eyes on his back as he turned and left to shower. Heero wasn't the only one he'd have to work on. His own confidence had been cracked, his spirit partially broken. Wufei remembered, and oh how he wished it had been also a nightmare, his shameful breakdown with Quatre, his whispered confession. Damn. Facing Winner again was going to be about as pleasant as being set on fire. But he'd get over it, he'd move past his momentary lapse. He had to work to rebuild himself both physically and mentally. Then, if Heero was still not convinced, Wufei would find a way of beating into his partner's cautious skull that the old Chang Wufei was back and most definitely ready for action.

 

 

It took an inordinate amount of time to properly apologize to Quatre, mainly because he refused to let Wufei get more than half a sentence out each time before interrupting him and assuring him that this wasn't his fault. Quatre seemed unusually insistent on that point; he normally had a bit more sense about the way Wufei worked. The latter wouldn't be able to move on until his debts were squared.

It took even longer to get rid of the Winner heir, who probably had better things to do than nursemaid a Preventer agent. Quatre didn't seem to think so. He only agreed to leave after Wufei solemnly promised on the heads of all his Ancestors, even the ones he didn't particularly like, that he would call Quatre the minute he was needed, or if Wufei felt the urge to talk and get things off his chest.

Then he was alone with Heero.

The day was spent quietly. Wufei meditated, as well as he could manage. Things still tried to crawl on the outskirts of his vision sometimes, skittering across his skin if he let his guard down, but he ignored them. He had more serious things to concentrate on.

"Chang?"

Just when the beetles were leaving him alone...

"What?" It took some effort not to snap.

"I'm going downstairs."

Wufei stared at his partner. This was the third time this afternoon that Heero had checked in on him. Presumably that was what he was doing. Fair enough; Wufei could understand that he needed supervision for a few days. Sally's warning came back to mind: after effects of the drug could include mild hallucinations, black outs and seizures.

What he didn't understand was why Heero was giving Wufei an itinerary every time he moved around the house. If Wufei started seizing, it wouldn't be helpful to know if Heero was in the kitchen, the toolshop or his room.

His partner was looking at him in that intent manner again. Maybe this was just some sort of awareness test. Or an excuse to check on a potentially cranky dragon.

"Okay," Wufei finally replied, since Heero looked to be expecting a response. If he asks me what day of the week it is, I'll be sorely tempted to answer 'orange', he added mentally.

"I'm not doing anything crucial. If you need anything, tell me," Heero added after the silence lasted just one second longer than it should have.

"Need anything?" Wufei stared. "I can walk now, Yuy."

Heero stared back, then nodded slowly and closed the door. Wufei glared at it, then shrugged and resumed his meditation without much more success until dinner.

His appetite was returning cautiously, like an animal frightened by a loud noise. At least the cramps and nausea had abated. Since Heero was cooking, Wufei didn't have to worry about the meal being too spicy, or too rich, or indeed anything but too bland. He ate the rice and unsalted fish balls on automatic.

"Chang?"

"Huh?!" Wufei sat up abruptly. He was on the dojo floor. "What am I doing here?!"

Heero was cautiously kneeling just out of arm's reach, his face and entire body as neutral as his voice. "You went to sleep while you were doing some stretching exercises."

Wufei's mouth went dry in panic, and then he relaxed. No, he hadn't lost time; he could remember the end of his meal and his decision to start nibbling away at the physical damage caused by both the drug and his physical reactions to it. He even remembered Heero risking life and limb by telling him to go slowly. Wufei hadn't answered back; his partner had racked up a good deal of credit to spend on that account. The memories were a bit fuzzy but they were there. Good, those periods of zoning out were more frightening than hallucinations. He couldn't stand the feeling that he'd moved around, talked, acted normally, and couldn't remember it.

"Hey!" Wufei's thoughts were interrupted as Heero leaned forward and gently scooped him up. Or tried to. Wufei slithered right out of his grasp, landing back on the mat with a thump.

"You should go to bed," Heero said guardedly. He'd immediately retreated again and was watching Wufei with eyes narrowed. Man, I must have really been unbearable these past few weeks, Wufei thought, though somehow Heero's attitude wasn't that of someone afraid of getting bitten in two.

"I can get there on my own two feet," Wufei mumbled. He didn't feel sleepy - which was also a bit worrisome, but if he was going to nod off abruptly, then it might as well be in bed, reading.

Heero stood up and backed off. "Narcolepsy was one of the side-effects Sally Po warned us about," he informed Wufei quietly, "so be careful going up the stairs."

Wufei stumbled at the edge of the dojo. "Narco- when did she say that?!" Not another black out-

"Yesterday. You were sleeping. She dropped by to examine you. No, she didn't even enter the room," Heero added, correctly interpreting the way Wufei's back had tensed in confusion. "We left you to sleep. Both Winner and I can recognize the signs of organ failure, and you were presenting none of them."

"Oh. Right." Wufei shook his head; it was feeling fuzzy again after his sudden unplanned nap. "You said...this morning, you said the blood samples had shown no damage either."

"Nothing significant," Heero corrected. "Sally had the results when she came to check on you. Your body is stressed, dehydrated and weakened. She still wants to check you for possible lesions of the digestive system. She suggested a low protein, low sodium diet for a few days, since your liver showed signs of strain. Some damage, but recoverable with the medication she left you. You'll feel tired for a few days, and we need to watch for jaundice or other signs of degeneration, but Sally thinks there's no permanent harm done. Nothing else."

"I was lucky," Wufei grunted, heading towards the stairs.

"You were strong."

Wufei stumbled on the lower step and glanced back. His partner was looking at him with that intent, unreadable expression again. But those words were not ones Wufei would expect from someone who was doubting him. He...he didn't know how to interpret that. He didn't want to think. Wufei nodded a bit warily and went to bed.

 

 

Wufei stared at the weapon cabinet's lock. A mild anxiety prickled his neck. He had entered the right code. Right? Like many things repeated automatically, now that he thought about it he could no longer be entirely sure he remembered it correctly. Especially in his own tired state of mind. He'd read until two in the morning and slept fitfully after that. He knew that his three-day sleep was to blame, but it still seemed the height of injustice for someone with narcolepsy to also suffer from insomnia.

He'd gotten up at five this morning. Hopefully one day he might actually sleep till six, or maybe even indulge in the sinful luxury of a lie-in until seven. He'd made himself breakfast, his appetite still shy but willing to try. Then he'd practiced his martial arts, just simple Tai Chi forms to start with, trying to judge how much he'd harmed himself over the past month. He'd lost weight and a bit of muscle tone, and his leg and shoulder were stiff, but after an hour he'd felt the extent of his fall from his physical peak, and it wasn't too bad. With a proper diet, rest and exercise, he could retrain himself into top shape in the few weeks of sick leave Sally had given him.

Heero had moved around upstairs while Wufei finished his routine, but didn't come down. Wufei, a bit at a loss for something to do, decided to do maintenance checks on their weaponry, only to be foiled by their gun locker.

"What are you doing?"

Wufei started and turned around, the obdurate lock still in his hand.

"Oh. I-"

One look at Heero's face and he knew what had happened.

"Did you change the code on the locker?" He needed to hear it confirmed.

"Yes."

Nice simple answer and no explanation. Wufei slapped an iron clamp on his emotions, his sudden surge of anger. He'd mentioned the hallucination where he'd tried to get weapons out of the locker to Sally. Quatre had been there too. Heero had undoubtedly heard about that.

"I'm not hallucinating any more, Yuy." Wufei kept his tone as neutral as his partner's. "Anyway, what's the point of changing the code? I have my Luger upstairs." If he was going to blow a fuse and start shooting-

"I removed the charger from your weapon."

" _You-_ " Wufei swallowed. Heavily. Keep your temper, Chang.

"That was unwise," his voice was tight but steady. "You should have at least told me. If I had needed my weapon, I would not have known it was unloaded. What would I have done if we were attacked?"

"I was here."

Wufei felt his eyes bug out. Temper, temper. You brought this on yourself.

"I-..." Wufei took a deep breath because he wouldn't be able to finish that sentence otherwise. "I do not want you to defend me, Yuy. I am no longer injured. I am not helpless. I am not suffering from any more hallu-"

Wufei stared at the silver oblong that Heero had produced from his pocket and handed out to him. It was the 12 9mm JSP ammo charger specifically built for Wufei's modern version of the Luger he'd had constructed on special order when he'd started working for the Preventers, as familiar as the back of his own hand.

"3479 star 9."

"What?" Wufei asked weakly. Maybe he wasn't the one who was hallucinating here.

"The code." Heero jerked his chin at the weapons locker, wrapped Wufei's fingers around the charger, and then turned and climbed back up the stairs.

Wufei checked the charger automatically. He found himself staring at the lock suspiciously as well. He felt a strong urge to make sure his partner had given him the right number. It gnawed at his mind, trying to bring him to scrutinize Heero's actions and words for any sign of distrust, of anything suspicious.

Sally had mentioned mild paranoia as a side-effect of stopping the drug...Wufei groaned internally and opened the weapons locker, trying to convince himself it was because he wanted to go through with his original plan and check their equipment. The slight relief he felt as the lock beeped and released the latch made him a liar.

Damn, he hoped things would go back to normal soon; in his own head and in the partnership. He couldn't even put his finger on what wasn't quite right, either. Normally, Heero should have dryly and sarcastically reminded his partner of why he'd changed the code in the first place, instead of immediately giving him the new combination without comment. Heero shouldn't have passed up that opportunity to score one over Wufei. It was their way, their own private bushido: you did not let a weakness in your rival pass unchallenged. A sort of tough training tool. Seen in that light, the whole exchange felt wrong. And still that impression that Heero was watching his every reaction while letting none of his own slip out, as if running an elaborate undercover operation at Wufei's expense-

Mild paranoia, he reminded himself with gritted teeth.

It was frightening not to be able to trust his own instincts, his own mind. Wufei stayed frozen with his hand on his micro Uzi. Was he doing this because he wanted to perform maintenance? Or was he just looking for some subconscious reassurance, the feel of heavy artillery in his hand? Was he about to lose it and run amok, and his mind was just trying to find excuses to pick up a weapon? Would he even know?

Wufei carefully closed the weapons locker again and almost wished Heero had not given him the code. Almost. But Wufei was a warrior, and his mind was disciplined and sharp. He knew the signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, dementia and hallucinations, and could distinguish each when he was forewarned and actually awake. No, he wasn't about to crack and start shooting up the house or blow his brains out. He had to stop second-guessing himself too much. Up to a point. He would take just one day at a time and concentrate on getting his center and his body back into shape. The rest would probably take care of itself, or he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

He climbed the stairs, intent on meditating on this new state of affairs and look for his balance. He fingered the charger now in his own pocket. Just to be on the safe side, he put it in the dresser drawer which contained his Luger but didn't rack it into the handgun for now.

It was hard to chase away the memory of that watchful look in Heero's eyes, or forget that he'd come down as soon as he'd heard Wufei try to open the locker. Or the bulge at the back of his loose tank top that meant he had his Glock on him. But hell, that last was understandable; Wufei would have done the same had the positions been reversed.

The way he'd given Wufei the code without any hesitation...

Confusing, Wufei thought, growling internally, but that was okay, Heero was probably trying to reestablish himself in their partnership too, trying to figure out where they both stood. And he wasn’t the only one.

 

 

Wufei stared at his ceiling. His throat and chest felt tight, his eyes ached. Shit...

He knew what this was. He knew the symptoms. Hell, he'd been tortured before, and he knew exactly what the consequences were, even if he'd always been extremely lucky and never had the truly bad treatments, the kind that could unfailingly break even the strongest spirit.

But he knew all about the choking depression that followed: the darkness that bled the colors from the world, the helplessness, the feeling of being weak because he was merely human, because he'd wanted it to stop.

Knowledge didn't make it much easier to bear.

This time it was even worse. He knew, clinically, that feeling guilty, feeling that there had to be a reason this had happened to him, a reason why the interrogator has put him through that, was also part of the emotional package bequeathed to torture survivors, like a last departing blow.

But in this instance, that feeling was probably justified.

Une had called earlier. Susan was being indicted today. Charges of attempted poisoning. But it was doubtful they would stick, since Wufei had told Une immediately that he would refuse to be a witness for the prosecution. Une had actually bellowed down the phone. She'd also mentioned subpoenas, at which point Wufei had hung up.

Then she'd apparently called Quatre, who'd called Wufei and asked the same question.

Why?

Wufei had told him: because he would be incriminating himself.

Quatre had been silent for awhile, said he understood and hung up.

Wufei had been sitting at the kitchen counter during both calls, reading while his partner worked in silence at the other end. Heero had been looking at him very oddly when he'd put the phone down the second time. It had probably gone right over his head. Heero Yuy might have guilt, regrets, but he kept them carefully in line and would never let them interfere with what had to be done.

Wufei envied him.

He turned on his side, starting to curl up into a reassuring little ball, then snarled and straightened out again. He didn't like giving in, even that little bit, and besides, Heero's habit of sticking his head through the door ten times a day to check on him stopped Wufei from relaxing his guard. He didn't want to show Heero his weakness.

The depression pounced once more.

Susan...Was Wufei as guilty as she had said he was? Shouldn't he be a lot more tortured about his colony's destruction?

No! a part of him shouted, fighting back. Susan was simply out for revenge. She was hurting, and she was trying to hurt right back. She hadn't been there. She hadn't seen Master Li's calm resolve as he pushed the button. Did not understand...

Or was it Wufei who didn't understand?

If only he'd surrendered. Well, surrendered more quickly, because he'd been about to do so. He could have escaped from OZ again, like he had on the Lunar Base.

No, fool, his reason immediately countered. OZ wouldn't have taken a second chance. They'd have destroyed Wufei and Nataku where they stood. And then probably destroyed A0206 for harboring a wanted terrorist.

But he couldn't be sure...Master Li and his clan might have survived...

It was their choice to go out this way...

But they made it because of me...

Wufei realized he'd curled up into a ball after all.

It hurt...and in that moment he couldn't see how the pain could ever go away.

Maybe he should take Sally up on that offer, let her prescribe some anti-depressants...

No. Both sides of his soul rebelled at that. The part which thought that this pain was Justice, the kind Susan had tried to apply. And the half that wanted to know that when he conquered this beast, he'd done so without help. He really needed that victory.

Somehow, that flash of resolve soothed him. The darkness receded, a few colors returned to the world. Wufei sat up, sighed, scrubbed his face with his hands as his own mental discipline finally reasserted itself. He wouldn't be a witness for the prosecution. But he wasn't going to put himself on trial either. Meiran, Master Li, the followers who'd stayed with the man to the last, refusing to evacuate, even Treize...they would not want Wufei to curl up into a little miserable ball like a whipped puppy, punishing himself for their choices, their deaths. They would want him to make sure that they had not died in vain. He had to get better. He had to get back out onto the field. He had to justify his survival, his choices, and make sure that he never made a wrong one again.

He had to-

He really, really had to get out of this bloody house.

Wufei swung his feet to the floor, mind hunting for an excuse. He glanced at his watch and realized it was late afternoon. Be eating dinner soon.

Oh boy, there was a good excuse! Hell, not so much an excuse, more of a necessity. He walked swiftly towards Heero's room, the promise of a tiny speck of action, of taking charge of a part of his life helping him fight back the darkness that would always be hovering on the edge of his mind.

"Yuy?"

Heero, seated at his desk, looked up at him, still with that indefinable expression.

"I'm going to the shop, do you want anything?"

A few moments of silence as Heero appeared to weigh the significance of Wufei deciding to go and buy some supplies. "I'll go with you."

Wufei bit down on his response. He'd figured it out by now, the reason why Heero kept an eye on him at all times. It wasn't just Sally's instructions. Wufei had been to see her yesterday and she'd declared him well on the road to recovery. Even the beetles had disappeared. But Wufei was ready to bet that Une had heard a version of the gun incident and had not been amused.

His partner had been made into his keeper. Wufei swallowed the bitterness at the revelation. His fault, he reminded himself, this was all partly his fault.

He repeated the litany over and over again as Heero watched his every move in the shop, discreetly but intently, as if there were anything important to be learned from which vegetables Wufei picked. Wufei concentrated on what he was doing fiercely, fighting both depression and a rising annoyance. His fault, partly his fault.

And still he felt there was something slightly off with his assessment of the situation. Heero didn't have the feel of someone ready to subdue him at the slightest sign of Wufei going over the deep end. But Wufei couldn't interpret Heero's actions any other way. There was still this distance between them; his partner was all but completely closed to him. His interpretation was the only one that seemed to fit the facts. He tried to forget about Heero giving him the gun locker codes without blinking the day before yesterday. He didn't know where to fit that fact. Along with Heero's neutral statement about Wufei's strength.

Wufei tried to shove his confusion from his mind and continued his shopping philosophically, dropping some noodles and a bottle of hoi min sauce into the basket. Heero's version of a nutritional diet would have Wufei recovering from his deathbed at record speeds. If he didn't have something even mildly tasty to eat tonight, he really was going to go ape-shit with the shotgun.

"Damn, forgot to get some instant coffee, Winner drank-" Wufei turned to find Heero striding back along the aisles, presumably to go get the coffee. Wufei frowned at the departing back, noting where the Glock swelled Heero's jacket, then he glanced around. It was a Thursday afternoon, the shop was filled with mothers and pre-schoolers. If Heero was following him around to avoid his harming others, he wasn't doing too good a job. Though Wufei wasn't armed, he was opposite the butcher's stand and a nice big knife was just on the other side of the glass. Wufei found himself looking at it nervously, wondering if his mind had noticed it to make the point that Heero was being a bit derelict in his duty, or because Wufei was about to start a massacre. The moment passed, and he shook himself.

"Are you okay? Do you want to go home?"

Wufei glanced once more a bit longingly at the butcher's knife, and then counted down from twenty in Japanese before he answered.

"I'm fine, Yuy. Did you get the coffee?"

Heero nodded sharply - for a crazed instant Wufei expected him to say ninmu kanryu- and placed the instant coffee in the cart.

That's the problem; he's so serious and attentive. We're not sniping at each other any more. This lack of aggression is unhealthy, Wufei thought, irritated. How was he supposed to regain his edge if his partner coddled him?

"What's wrong?"

Wufei glanced up. "What?"

"You look annoyed." Blue eyes scrutinized him.

Wufei hesitated. 'Stop being so nice and start tearing strips out of me already' was probably not the thing to say if he wanted to convince Heero of his recovered sanity. Besides, Wufei hadn't been going for his usual jibes either, still aware he'd stretched his partner's forbearance this past month.

"I- I'm not." Wufei wished once more that he was a better liar.

Oh hell, his thing was aggression and coming right out in the open. He spun on Heero, letting the cart roll a foot down the aisle unheeded. "Did Une ask you to watch me? Do you really think I'm going to start shooting innocent bystanders or myself because I held you at gun-point while I was under the influence of a hallucinogen?"

A mother stared at Wufei, then packed up her three-year old and headed towards the door at high speed, leaving a full shopping basket behind her. Wufei barely noted their departure over Heero's shoulder; most of his attention was on his partner. Heero's eyes had widened slightly and his whole body had frozen into an unreadable chunk.

"No," he replied softly. "Une did ask me to keep an eye on you, same as Sally, but only so you didn't come to harm. She gave me full leave to stay and work from home. Une suggested you might be better off in the Ops clinic, but Sally insisted that you would recover more quickly in a well known environment."

"Oh."

"But I don't think that you're about to harm anyone. Why did you think that was on my mind?" Heero's eyes were going over Wufei's face an inch at a time, as if he were trying to read letters scrolling across Wufei's features.

"You're always around. You're watching me," Wufei answered, a bit lamely.

Heero was silent once more, apparently adding one more variable to the difficult Chang equation in his mind. Wufei was beginning to dread what lay beyond the equal sign. "Does that bother you? Would you rather be at the clinic?"

"What?! No!"

Silence again. A few shoppers passed them in the aisle with a glare for the space they were taking up.

Wufei dropped his gaze, annoyed at himself for the small ache where there shouldn't be any. Why should Heero think he'd recovered when Wufei's center was still shattered? He mumbled: "I just don't like the feeling you don't trust me - though I understand perfectly well why you don't-"

"I trust you."

Wufei blinked. He was staring at Heero's back. His partner had taken the cart and was heading towards the cashiers. Those words had not been in a neutral monotone and had not sounded calculated for the first time since Wufei had woken up. They'd been immediate, soft, but intense, with something like an undertone of frustration as if Wufei was a dolt for doubting it.

They had sounded very, very honest.

Wufei shook his head. One day at a time. He trusts you, and he doesn't think you're going to snap. That's already very good. Probably more than you deserve. Just deal with the rest one day at a time.

 

 

Swish-creak.

Wufei licked a bead of sweat from his upper lip.

Swish-creak.

Five more.

Swish-creak.

Rhythm was soothing.

Swish-creak.

No more questions, anger, frustration...

Swish-creak.

Just moving, thrusting-

Swish-creak.

Muscles rippled, harmony, power.

Swish-creak.

Done.

Wufei let the weights spring back gently and grabbed his towel.

Without the repetitive noise of the weights, the clicking noise from Heero's laptop filled the silence of the main room, along with Wufei's deep breaths.

Wufei rose, wiped his face, and started moving around to keep warm. He tried not to glance at Heero. It was an effort. His gaze tried to sneak off that way as soon as his attention let up.

It was stupid; Wufei felt pretty confident he wouldn't catch Heero watching him obsessively any more. His partner had stopped that abruptly two days ago after their shopping trip. Just like that. Wufei stretched and moved his arms, glaring at the matting beneath the weight machine.

Heero wasn't watching him like a bug under a microscope any more. But it was a fact that each time Wufei came down to the main room, Heero had some reason or other to be there three minutes later. It was pretty reliable. Wufei was starting to use it instead of a stop watch these days. Ah, Heero's coming down the stairs, that'll be three minutes, tea must be ready.

Moron. He didn't think Wufei would notice? Or did he just not care if Wufei did notice?

At least Wufei could get away from it in his room. Though 'getting away from it' implied it was unpleasant, and that was too strong a word. Confusing. Mildly annoying. But mainly because he couldn't read Heero and couldn't figure out what he was thinking these days. Yeah, mainly that.

Even his room wasn't a complete refuge from his mystifying partner. Heero would still pop his head through the door half a dozen times a day, to see if he was hungry, or to tell Wufei where he was. 'I'm going to be training downstairs. Setting up my laptop at the kitchen counter. Getting a drink. Going to work on my bike.' On that occasion he'd invited Wufei to join him, and that had been nice, it was a return to the normal routine that Wufei craved.

But then things would go back to being strange. For instance...

Wufei told himself not to, but found himself moving towards the kitchen area anyway, the towel around his neck. It was like prodding a sore tooth with your tongue; he just couldn't stop testing if the pain was still there.

"Busy?"

"Hn." A positive 'hn'. One thing that hadn't changed was his partner's economy with words.

"What are you working on?"

There it was. That little glance, a flicker of blue through thick brown bangs. And the silence that lasted just one second longer than it should, making Heero's answer less than spontaneous.

"Computer work."

Wufei rolled his eyes-

"On a suspect's IP connection," Heero added quickly before Wufei could blow up.

"Ah. What case?"

"Current investigation. Work for Grecko. Nothing interesting."

Oh, and why not let me be the judge of that? "Syndicate?"

"No."

Wufei waited. After four seconds, the flicker of blue again, slightly puzzled.

He waited some more, but it was obvious that no more information would be forthcoming. He didn't push any further. Heero would give him a curt brush-off - nothing you can help with, Chang, you're not assigned to this case. And then Wufei would-

...Then Wufei would have to confront the reason this bothered him so much: that he just wanted to talk to Heero, listen to him describe his work in his usual monotone, discuss the difficulties, find solutions together, enjoy the synergy that used to define them and hold them together.

Wufei turned abruptly, stretching his arms to hide the stiffness of hurt and anger that would otherwise radiate from his shoulders.

Damn him! Wufei's mental grumble was an empty clap of thunder. He didn't know why he was so frustrated. After all, Heero was right, this wasn't his case, he was on full sick leave. And in little over a week, Sally would certify him fit for duty again and then Heero would damn well have to start talking to him!

For some reason, the thought brought him no pleasure.

Wufei swung his leg over the bench and sat down again, with something a bit more like a discontented slouch than usual. Heero was confusing these days, and Wufei's feelings - the ones he shouldn't be having anyway - kept tripping him up as well.

It was Heero's fault! That was established, Wufei thought grumpily. Wufei was sure that if Heero treated him normally, Wufei would be able to regain his usual cold detachment. But one minute he was getting a cold brush-off, or being watched like a tiger in a zoo, the next-

Wufei grabbed the weight bar but couldn't avoid yet another replay of yesterday's unusual occurrence. Heero had dropped by Wufei's room to say he was going to work at his desk; he'd been tidying up the toolshop downstairs. Wufei had grunted something.

The next moment, Heero was in Wufei's room. And sitting down on his bed, the far corner away from Wufei. To date, that was the first time Heero had come in contact with Wufei's bed without sex being in the equation. Wufei had nearly dropped the book he'd been reading.

"Are you okay?" Heero had asked him gruffly.

Wufei had stared at him, wild-eyed. He'd just been reading quietly alone in his room, he hadn't done anything! Unless he was starting to hallucinate again!

"Is there anything you wanted to talk about? You've been very quiet."

Wufei had been rather grateful that he'd already been sitting down at that point. "I-" What could he say? He'd been very quiet because Heero wasn't talking to him, was what he'd wanted to say, but he didn't want an argument. Every time Wufei raised his voice, or used a cutting comeback, he'd have an almost physical flashback to that month of nightmares and shredded, raw nerves. Heero had borne the brunt of it, and Wufei was too achingly aware of how badly he'd treated his partner to let his temper loose now. Instead he caught it and leashed it inside his soul where it festered.

"I'm okay," he'd muttered.

Heero had stared at him then gotten up and left without a word. Only after he'd left had his words come back to Wufei. 'Is there anything you wanted to talk about...' Had that been a cue for Wufei to ask Heero about his life and work these days? Then why did Heero give him the brush-off when he did ask? What had that been? He didn't know.

Just didn't make sense.

Wufei started pressing the weights. Muscles warmed. This was simple. Clean. Appeasing. This made sense.

Swish-creak.

Heero sitting on his bed...

Swish-creak.

Heero in his bed...

Swish-creak.

Rhythmic - thrusts-

Swish-creak.

Muscles coiling - thrusting -

Swish-creak.

\- into Heero-

Swish-...

Wufei fumbled the weights and tried to keep the repetitions regular, not looking at his partner who'd probably glanced up at the break in the rhythm. Shit, he hoped his thoughts weren't written all over his face. Or his body for that matter.

Two months without sex...

When Heero had sat down on his bed, Wufei had been expecting - hoping - for something other than words.

It was...frustrating. The weights started to crash a bit at the end of the press, but Wufei ignored them, the discordant noise suited his thoughts. Two months. Just like when Heero had been injured. But Wufei wasn't physically unfit any more. Swish-creak-clash! No he wasn't! So, what was Heero waiting for?!

It was always Heero who made the first move in their ritual. Wufei accepted or declined, but Heero made the opening gambit.

Except now he wasn't doing so.

And Wufei was having quite a few hormones curdling up along with the confusion, the anger and the frustration.

Swish-creak.

Shit, now he'd lost count.

Swish-creak.

Heero's fault.

Swish-creak.

Well, maybe it was time Wufei stopped waiting for their arrangement to return to normal.

Swish-creak.

Maybe it was time he took matters into his own hands.

Swish-creak-bang!

And he knew just how to do it.

A frown had crinkled Heero's brow at the final clash of weights. He never mistreated the equipment, except for the martyrdom of the punching bag that was the designated sacrificial lamb those rare times Heero was in a bad mood.

Wufei uncoiled from the weight bench, wiped his face and arms with the towel, and stalked towards the kitchen counter.

Fingers flew over the keyboard, strangely delicate for someone who possessed such strength. But Heero was careful with all his necessary tools: weapons, laptop, training equipment. The only necessary items in his life that he treated roughly were the punching bag, which he replaced on average every three months, and Wufei, who could take that and more. Time to remind his partner of that little fact.

The click of keys faltered minutely and slowed, and Heero peeked up through his bangs. That look, as he was caught slightly off-balance and pinned by Wufei's stare, was...strangely appealing. Especially the way his fingers were still curled up over the keys, hovering delicately, unsure but ready to caress the keyboard again if allowed to. Damn, I need to get laid, Wufei thought, noting the familiar prickle at the base of his spine.

"I'm finished with the weights," he purred.

Heero blinked and straightened up slightly. He still looked nonplussed.

"Now I need some combat training. No use having muscles if my martial skills have rusted away to nothing."

Heero glanced down at his laptop, then up again. "You want to practice some moves?"

"No," Wufei murmured, "I want to slam you down on the floor and pin you in a lock until you give up." And then we'll take it from there, he added mentally. Wouldn't be the first time one of their wild sparring matches ended up with a savage hump on the dojo floor.

Heero's fingers had been on the keys again, possibly closing programs, but he froze at that. "You want to fight?"

Normally that would have been said with a feral grin, a 'you really sure you know what you want, and that you know it will be painful?' sort of arrogant smirk.

This time, the four words were said in a guarded, neutral tone that made Wufei's eyebrows arch.

"Come on, Yuy. I've not had any actual combat for two months, and the last fight I had was with a car. But if you're scared, I'll promise to go easy on you." Okay, he was going to pay for that, Heero was going to make him suffer for that remark, but at least he'd get some action.

Heero didn't even twitch. He was looking at Wufei with eyes half-hidden by his bangs, motionless. Wufei started to frown.

"Is that what you want?" Heero asked slowly.

Huh? Wufei tried to analyze that. Not the words, which could have meant anything, but the tone. Intent? Searching? What the hell-

"Yuy, stop dithering! My leg and shoulder are fine! Or if not, I'd rather know now than next week when we have to go back on a mission! Now get your ass on that tatami!"

Heero closed a few programs slowly and stood up. "Okay. We can take it easy to start with, and we do need to test your fighting levels," he acknowledged with a frown. He carefully shut the laptop and walked over to the springboard floor, Wufei following him like a hungry tiger stalking an oblivious deer.

"What did you want to -" Heero started, turning around, and gasped and leaped back as Wufei's first probing attack flew towards his face.

"Wake up, Yuy," Wufei sneered, immediately pressing the advantage, moving forward and swinging again. They were just light strokes to start with, testing the waters. Heero caught them on his forearms without even trying. Wufei absently noted blue eyes wider than usual and a mouth open as if to say something, but he really wasn't interested. The first flesh-on-flesh contact had switched on his adrenaline; battle lust was starting to burn in his veins. He pushed his strikes a bit more, and Heero took a step back, regaining his balance. Wufei jumped forward automatically, his body trained to react instinctively to any perceived weakness. Heero had to take another step back, and then another as Wufei's attack became quicker and more vicious.

Odd that Heero was backing off. Pacing himself? Observing Wufei's technique? The last suggested a difference in skills; it ignited Wufei's battle fury. Heero gasped as a well-placed blow got through his defenses, scoring his abs. He twisted and retaliated, probably on instinct. Wufei tilted his head to let Heero's fist whistle past it and was on the offensive again. No thinking. They were dogs of war, trained to fight on instinct, their minds focusing on higher strategies while they killed without caring. This was it, this was their edge. Elation made Wufei feel light on his feet as he darted forward. He'd forgotten about sex - this was just as good!

Heero was fighting back. Whatever had held him back to start with wasn't going to stop his body from moving in the deadly dance that had been trained into its very fibers. Wufei grinned savagely as he received a few blows on his arms and thighs, his body twisting to dodge them or minimize their impact, already retaliating. Yes. This was them. Blow - counterblow- this was the heartbeat between them-

Wufei stumbled. A tiny slip-up. But in this kind of battle, the rhythm of the fight - as primal and reliable as sex - meant that any break caused an opening. One that Heero exploited immediately and instinctively. Wufei managed to grunt a curse as he overbalanced on the dodge and stumbled to the mat. Heero landed on top of him, accelerating his fall.

That was more like it! Muscles and mind sang in fierce harmony. His only goal: throw Heero off and back on the tatami. Before jumping on him in turn!

He bucked, turned-...and found himself twisting in air. Overbalanced again, he thumped back against the mat on his side like a landed fish.

Levering himself up, he glanced around, bewildered.

Heero was three feet away, half crouched, a knee to the ground, hands out as if to catch him. "Are you okay?"

"Huh?" was the most intelligent thing Wufei could come up with.

"I didn't come down on you too hard, did I?"

Wufei just sat there. He absently wondered if he had little question marks comically floating around his head. Or possibly cartoon stars from the way Heero was checking him over visually with a touch of worry.

"Are you all right? You didn't hit your head, did-"

"Yuy, what the hell was that?! You got lucky, my own balance did more to bring me down than you did, I landed soundly, I was ready to toss you like one of your bloody Japanese pancakes! Where was your follow-through?!"

Heero stared at him and Wufei's spirit sank like a stone. It was back. That watchful, weighing look. It hadn't left, it had only gone undercover.

Before Wufei could do more than glimpse it, Heero was standing and had his back to him, as if aware of having shown something he shouldn't have.

"We agreed to go easy," he said flatly over his shoulder.

Wufei made spluttering noises. That's what he'd said, but that had been a joke! His whole body language should have screamed that he wanted a real fight. And a good deal more after that, thank you very much.

And Heero knew it, he was sure. Those quick words were an excuse to cover up the moment, his odd actions. He'd been attacking quite satisfactorily up until that point; there had been no doubt in anybody's mind that they were going at it as hard as they could.

Then Heero had backed off as if suddenly alarmed by the intensity they normally courted.

"Do you want to continue?" Heero was looking at him. Wufei wasn't sure how to read him any more, but he didn't think his partner looked all that enthusiastic. "You're in form, I can see that," Heero added quickly.

Wufei stared at him, his mind spinning in slowly diminishing circles like a fallen gear. " ...No. That's okay."

Heero's eyes were on him discreetly, while he grabbed a towel and made a show of wiping his face. And why the hell was he doing that?! It wasn’t like Wufei had managed to get him sweating!

Wufei stood and turned away. "You have work to do. I'll practice my forms."

He could feel Heero's eyes on him, watching him silently. He ignored his partner, taking up a stance at the center of the tatami and flowing into first form. After a few movements, he heard Heero move towards the counter again and then the laptop boot up.

There's something wrong.

The forms followed one another. A dance he'd been practicing since he could walk.

There's something different.

In the back of his mind, voices barked out the names of each movement, and corrected or praised him: his father, Master Li, a succession of respected teachers.

This is more than his worrying about my injuries.

Tenth form - 'eagle pouncing on snake' - eleventh form, flowing into twelfth and thirteenth, his father's favorite combination.

This is more than worrying about the after-effects of the drug.

Fifteenth form, leg scything out. The dojo was the perfect size for his wushu; he was well clear of the walls at all times.

It's as if...no, he said he trusted me. He actually said it.

'Snake going up bamboo' - arm punching air from full extension of the body, enough power in that uncoiling to kill someone. He'd done it before.

It's as if...

The forms slowed ever so slightly.

It's as if...

He faltered, but caught himself on the twenty-second form before he accidentally twisted his spine the wrong way around. His mind stopped paying attention, though his body continued in the movements, both violent and graceful.

No, Quatre had promised. At Wufei's insistence, he had sworn he'd not told Heero about- about what had been said, and wouldn't in the future either.

Twenty fifth form, twenty sixth.

Wufei had even double-checked, knowing that Quatre would not be above dropping a big fat hint even if he didn't give Heero a verbatim account of Wufei's shameful breakdown.

Punch-punch. Balance back on the rear foot. Crouch and kick.

What Quatre had said, was, 'You already asked me not to interfere before, Wufei. It's not my place to volunteer any unasked-for information'.

Turn, stand, parry, and dodge an invisible attacker.

Which, now that Wufei thought about it, left quite a few loopholes...But Quatre knew better than to meddle with the complicated and delicately balanced arrangement between the two ex-pilots. Although Winner had insisted strongly and for longer than was proper that Wufei talk to Heero, ASAP.

Destroy the invisible opponent with well placed kicks and lunges.

Maybe he should...just walk up to Heero and ask him what the hell was going on, and refuse to take a blank look or feigned ignorance for an answer.

Stand back, gather balance. Fists drawn back at the waist.

But what if Heero wasn't acting all that oddly? What if it was just Wufei's damned emotions and remnants of perfectly understandable tension between them, making him paranoid...?

Breathe in, breathe out. Put fists down. Relax.

Or rather, try to relax. Wufei found himself caught between two opposing forces yet again. He wanted to make sure there was no problem, if it meant sitting down and glaring at his partner until the latter talked. And he also wanted to maintain the silence, go back to normal, not risk losing what he had over something that might not even exist.

He started stretching on automatic, his spirits sinking. He wished he had someone to talk to.

That feeling was so alien to him, it made him pause, and then he shook it off and continued with his stretching, ignoring occasional glances from the sidelines.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on behalf of a friend of mine. If you break a leg, you get a cast. If you get an infection, you take antibiotics. If you’re suffering from depression, you take anti-depressants. Wufei’s attitude of ‘I can beat it myself, I don’t want any help’ is wrong and dangerous, but keep in mind he’s a bit of a blockhead on certain topics. Opinions expressed by this unreliable narrator are not the authors etc.


	36. Chinese Poles, Part II

"Not only can water float a craft, it can sink it also"  
\--- Chinese saying

 

"What are you doing?"

Wufei glanced over the top of his glasses at his partner, then down at the book in his hand. He doubted that 'reading' was the appropriate answer.

"What?"

"Is that for your university degree?"

Wufei shifted on the couch, the movement defensive. "Yes. Paper due."

"You have to read every one of those books you have on your desk upstairs?"

"...Yes." Wufei batted down the surprise that Heero knew about what he had set aside in his study, to brace for Heero's estimate of how much time he was wasting on something other than the job.

"Why so many? Don't you just have to read one book?"

"...It's not a book report. It's a comparative literature study." Wufei closed the book, marking the page with his finger, still feeling a bit wary about this out-of-character interest in his studies.

"Hn." Heero picked up a book that Wufei had left on the counter.

Don't say anything, Chang. None of your business. "Um..." He's not really interested, he's just bored. "That's not..." Shut up.

Heero glanced at him curiously. He'd been looking at the book's spine.

"Tran Anh Hoang is not the easiest author to start with," Wufei found himself saying, listening in quiet disbelief to himself as his words tumbled out to wander innocently into a minefield. "Her imagery is a bit exotic for someone who hasn't studied her contemporaries -"

"The fact it's in Vietnamese might be more of a problem," Heero noted with a strange quirk of the lips.

The near-smile, the soldier's hand on one of his books, the fact that they were having a conversation about _literature_ was shaking Wufei's composure badly in ways he really couldn't explain. He was over that first horrible week of withdrawal from Susan Wu's attempt to poison him, his brain felt back where it belonged. He even felt well enough to start working on his neglected studies, despite the fact that Heero considered it something of a waste of time. If he was well enough to worry about dead poets, he was well enough to work on live cases, would be his partner's approach. That didn't worry Wufei; that attitude was normal for his partner. And that's what he wanted. For everything to go back to normal. He watched Heero warily, trying to figure out what angle his partner was working.

"If you want something to read-" Wufei started, and then slipped his hand under his thigh because it had been about to smack him for that impromptu and boneheaded suggestion. But he had to finish it now. "I have some Miyamoto in Japanese."

"I read The Book of Five Rings," Heero answered with an inscrutable expression. Wufei could once read his partner like a book, but suddenly he was finding there were whole new chapters he'd never noticed and he seemed to have lost the index. The partners' near telepathy only worked in combat, when they were fighting back to back with their lives on the line. When they were at rest, waiting for their next assignment, things were less clear. Except...they were never really at rest. Their constant little verbal matches, their sparring, their perpetual honing of each other's edge: that took the place of combat and gave them a common ground for communication. Wufei had assumed that he would always be able to figure out his straightforward partner. Apparently he'd been mistaken. Right now he couldn't guess what Heero was about to say, or was trying to get at, and part of him didn't like it one bit.

While another part of him was intrigued. It was this last that took him rather by surprise.

"When did you read that? During the war, in your classes in Jap Point?" he fished, though he wasn't quite sure why he wanted to pursue this.

"During training on L1."

"Ah right. I bet you read the modern, expurgated version. The one that concentrates on the strategic import and skips the philosophy." Wufei tried to keep the weary bitterness from his voice. He didn't think J had tried to instill an appreciation of literature in his child-weapon. "It was a rather popular version among Alliance officers a few years back."

"Maybe. I remember that it was very logical, but he seemed to be enjoying the language he used, as if that was almost as important as what he was saying. As if using the right word could make it mean even more than just the plain explanation of the concept." Heero looked strangely thoughtful, a look that spun like a penny between incomprehension and approval. "It was a reward."

Wufei had the distinct impression that last had slipped out unintentionally, riding coattails on the memory. "A reward?" he asked before he could stop himself. He regretted it almost immediately; the partners didn't pry into each others' pasts.

Heero's face and posture had started to close, but he answered nonetheless. "I did exceptionally well during training at one point. The book was my reward. It was the only thing I possessed, until I-...it was taken from me later."

Wufei was about to set fire to the couch to get out of this conversation. Who knew a paper in Asian Literature could take him walking along the edge of such a dark precipice. He ran his usual litany regarding Doctor J through his mind - he had a fond hope that a devil would whip the old bastard at every repetition - and tried to think about what to say in response. "Would you like to read the original text? I think you'll find it interesting."

The phone rang before Heero could answer, and despite the extreme discomfort and the dangers of this conversation going into unknown, uncharted, and extremely unstable territory, Wufei felt a flash of pure irrational fury towards the caller.

He stood up and wandered over to the kitchen counter, picking up books as he went. Heero was using his 'mission-mode' voice, grunting and asking for details in a monotone. Wufei half-listened morosely. Heero was busy with a lot of different projects. And he still didn't share any with Wufei. Wufei glared at the books in his hands. He'd been enjoying the break, the chance to read and relax, but at times like these, the padded cell they all had him in made him claustrophobic.

"I have to go out," Heero announced shortly, closing his cell with a distant frown.

What? He's going to leave me alone in the house without a nanny? Wufei managed not to say anything, just nodded as if it were no big deal that Heero was leaving him alone for the first time since The Gun Incident.

Heero was slipping on his jacket and boots. "I shouldn't be long. Two hours, tops. I need to go to the Preventer HQ. Sally is in Ops though, and so is Sam. You can call them if you need anything. You can call me, too; my cell phone should be on."

If I trip and break my toe, I'll have loads of people to tell, Wufei snarled mentally, but didn't say any of that out loud either.

"I'll be back soon." Heero repeated, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "You sure you'll be-"

Even Heero Yuy flinched away from the look Wufei gave him at that point.

Wufei turned to the counter, aligned his books, and picked them up. If Heero was leaving, he might as well go work in his room. Not that he'd come down because Heero was down here, particularly. But now that his partner was leaving, the main room was going to seem very big and empty. Maybe he'd take a nap. He considered that as he picked up his books and turned towards the stairs. He was still a bit tired these days, his sleep uneven and broken by surreal bad dreams as his mind tried to cope with the remnants of its injury-

An arm at his elbow turned him, interrupting his thoughts. Wufei flinched instinctively, and the kiss landed on the corner of his mouth, Heero's nose bumping his cheekbone. Then there was a blur of motion, Heero's back, a flutter of jacket, and the door closing.

After a few seconds of thunderous silence, Wufei's books slipped from his numb grip. The thump of literature on linoleum made him jump a mile.

What the fuck was that?!

Wufei sank to his knees and began to blindly pick up his books. He walked up the stairs on automatic, dropped the books off in his study and then went to sit on his meditation mat. His head was spinning.

For over two weeks now, he'd been working to regain his confidence in himself, as well as prove himself to Heero. Move past the drug-induced guilt and nightmares, and soul-rendering revelations. Forget all that and go back to normal.

And then 'normal' went and pulled stuff like this on him!

He needed his center. Wufei had been kicked about every which way these past three years, his ideals betrayed, his own convictions used by others, his place in the universe lost in blood and fire. Since the end of the war, he clung to what he knew, what he could rely on. Stability. Duty. Efficiency. Until recently, his partner had been one more of these solid, reliable things. But now his rock was shifting.

And it didn't even make sense! Heero wasn't making any sense. If Heero was being consistent - a word which could have been designed for the man, Wufei would have said a mere month ago - then Wufei could have coped, well, a bit. These little gestures could have been the result of a small shopping list Quatre had given Heero: 'Little things you can do to make Chang Wufei feel a bit more appreciated, do it or I go Zero on your ass', and Wufei could imagine Heero following the instructions to the letter like the good little soldier he was.

But Quatre had sworn he'd said nothing to Heero about- about Wufei's shameful lapse. And besides, if Heero was following instructions, they were being provided by two different people, one of whom was apparently trying to drive Wufei insane.

Wufei had been desperately working to convince himself everything was back to normal, like a man fighting against the tide. That kiss had finally broken the dam. Every action Heero had taken since he had gotten the drug out of his system - which Wufei constantly fought to interpret according to this or that pattern of known behavior in his partner - was stacking up in his mind. And it just refused to make-

Maybe Heero was hoping they could have sex when he got back.

With a wash of relief, Wufei jumped on that explanation. Yeah, okay, that made sense. Heero must be feeling pretty damn frustrated too. Lack of action, heh, all kinds of action. Had to affect him too. So that's what the bit about Wufei's books had been about! Heero had, up till now, kept his promise about not badgering Wufei while he was reading. He must have been testing the waters, seeing if Wufei would mind a little break from studying for some good old physical relief. Then the phone had interrupted him, but he had left with a small promise, a nod, notifying Wufei of what he'd like when he returned. Right. Made perfect sense.

Wufei wasn't about to complain, either! Two hours, Heero had said. Plenty of time for a nap. A shower first, then a nap.

His hair spilled over his shoulders as he dragged his tee-shirt off a bit over-enthusiastically. Wufei made a face as he fished around the floor for the fallen hair-tie. He found it, grinned and straightened.

A stranger stared back at him from the mirror.

Wufei winced, his gaze flinching away from his reflection's. He hadn't looked at himself much during the month of drugged madness. Afraid of what he would see.

The image dragged his gaze back, almost helplessly. His hair fell around his face, his shoulders. He didn't appear too tired these days, he was getting better. He looked pretty much as he always had. Hard, face strong, a touch arrogant even at rest, accentuated by the natural curve of eyebrows and nose. His body was wiry and tough, he was getting back to his original weight, he was-

He was fooling himself if he was going to try to deny that the stranger in the mirror was looking back at him with a glint of sick, sordid hope in his eyes.

Wufei's gaze fell to the faucet as if it were too heavy to keep fixed on the black eyes plunging searchingly into his.

It was there, at the back of his mind. A small shiver, a pulse of hope that was keeping him off-balance still.

What if...?

Wufei had nearly died a few weeks ago. He had certainly come close to going insane, or permanently ruined. Their partnership, their arrangement had nearly ended. What if...Heero had suddenly realized the importance that had in his life? A realization that had already come to Wufei a while back, though he tried to control and minimize it as much as possible.

What if all those odd little instances - the kiss, the few words of trust and encouragement, the looks - were a sign of...of something else? Of Heero wanting something else...?

Not that that made much more sense, Wufei quickly reminded himself, trying to still the flutter, kill it before it could knock him even more off-center. There were still lots of things that Heero had done these past weeks that didn't fit into that picture either. But more than that...

Wufei hauled his gaze up to meet his reflection's again, to stare it down. Get real, Chang. You don't want that.

And Yuy certainly doesn't want that. More to the point, he doesn't even know what 'that' is.

His eyes lost their focus, stared blindly over his reflection's shoulder. He was seeing an intense, sixteen-year-old killer by the codename of Heero Yuy, as deadly and focused as Wing itself, telling him that he would never get involved with anyone who didn't have the necessary emotional detachment. The child-man who would die without hesitation, regret or even fear for his mission.

Wufei was willing to admit - had been made to admit under duress, to be more exact - that he wasn't always able to understand his own feelings very well, that he couldn't control them as well as he wanted to.

But he knew this one truth.

He knew about Heero's training, his upbringing. Heero had never had any affection in his life, anyone on his side who wasn't trying to use him. Hell, Heero had had a considerable amount of trouble understanding the concept of 'allies' to start with. He barely managed the notion of 'friend'. Wufei knew, coldly, clearly, that Heero would sacrifice any one of the four people he'd let close to him for his mission if he had no other choice. Even Wufei. This was what defined Heero to the core of his soul.

Heero needed him because Wufei understood that.

If Heero ever thought Wufei had lost sight of that, might do something that could interfere with the efficiency of their well-honed unit, then...

Wufei focused reluctantly on his reflection again. The little light in his eyes was still there, a trace of sadness, of pitiful hope. Fuck. How pathetic.

No matter. In the very unlikely - hell, impossible - event that Heero was actually starting to care about Wufei as a person instead of a handy sword at his back, then he'd eventually show it a bit more clearly. Heero's actions were always reliable pointers, expressing Heero's mind much more surely than words. And the first action Wufei was expecting when Heero got home was a bit of one-on-one action! He turned from the mirror brusquely, getting rid of the rest of his clothes. Shower. Sleep. Wait for partner to get home and jump on him. Hey, he'd just had a thought! He had that appointment with Sally later. It was a pre-checkup for his final evaluation in three days, but both Wufei and his partner were hoping that Sally would declare him fit right away. He certainly felt fit! Heero had better watch his ass when he got home. Because Sally was probably going to give Wufei the rubber glove treatment as a matter of course, and that was a made-to-measure excuse to be on top before the visit if he ever heard one.

The first lash of cold water against his skin made him grin fiercely, banishing the ghost of false hopes clinging to his mind. They were still there, corrupting his balance, rubbing him raw behind his shields. But he'd get over them. Get certified healthy, get out onto the field, get back to normal.

He couldn't wait.

 

 

Wufei struggled against the beetles. They'd fed on so many corpses that they were now the size of polecats and with the same disposition. But Wufei was back in fighting form! His sword wreaked havoc in their midst. When they got too close for the blade, a boot through their carapace left an ugly mess on the dojo floor. He didn't worry about the ones at his back; a bullet picked off any that got too close. Heero was at the top of the stairs, a gun in each hand, firing down coldly and methodically. Wufei didn't look - couldn't afford the distraction - but he found himself grinning savagely. Destroy all the beetles, escape, then jump his ally's bones in the nearest alleyway afterwards.

He started at an alien sound rising above the ugly chittering. A whine, almost melodic. He spun and ducked as a gigantic fly dived towards his head. Air support! These beetles were organized!

"Huh?!"

Wufei sat upright with a start, staring around. Stupid dream. But the buzzing of the fly had been real - cell phone, on his bedside table.

He picked it up, noting it was Heero's number on the caller ID. He glanced at his watch. Exactly two hours since his partner had left the workshop.

//Chang?//

"Yeah. Whazit, Yuy?"

//Are you all right?//

Wufei stared at the opposite wall, but it had nothing constructive to say at that point.

//Chang?// There was a slight tension audible over the line.

"I'm fine!" Or he had been until some idiot had woken him up from a perfectly good nap - one where he was actually squishing those damn beetles - to ask him if he was all right as if he were a ten-year-old left alone in the house for the first time.

//You sound dazed.//

"No, I sound dozy. That's probably because I was dozing. What do you want?"

//You were sleeping. I'm sorry.//

Oh, in the name of- "Why are you calling?" Wufei forced his voice down to 'medium broil' with an effort.

//The meeting's been extended. Another two hours, at least.//

Wufei's mood, already pretty foul, took a definite nose-dive. Great. That meant no sex before going to see Sally.

//I'm sorry, I won't be able to drive you to your appointment this evening. You will have to take your bike.//

"The alternative - to roller-skate - would be difficult without skates," Wufei muttered, fuming quietly.

//What?// There was a definite edge to Heero's tone. Probably wondering if Wufei was hallucinating again.

"I'll take the bike," Wufei said through clenched teeth. "Was there anything else?"

//No.//

"Good."

//Actually,// Heero suddenly sounded uncharacteristically hesitant, //the meeting might extend even more. I'll call you if that happens. Is that okay?//

Wufei hoped Sally wouldn't take his blood-pressure when he saw her.

"Why shouldn't it be?! Gods, Yuy, why don't you put me in a straitjacket and get it over with?!"

The shout took Wufei entirely by surprise. He'd been holding his temper so conscientiously these days. Damn.

From the stunned silence on the other end of the phone, he wasn't the only one caught off-guard.

Wufei felt his lips draw back over his teeth in a silent snarl, but he forced his voice to a more neutral tone. He couldn't quite manage apologetic right then.

"Sorry. I- " Oh, there was a challenge, trying to explain that one away. "We've been cooped up in this bloody house for weeks. It's..."

//I don't think you're crazy.// Heero's voice was neutral too. Though Wufei thought he could detect a slightly offended quality. Wufei frowned, puzzled at Heero's objection, until he remembered that he'd shouted about a straitjacket.

"I know. I meant-...look, tell Une that I don't need constant supervision anymore, okay? I'm sure it's driving you stir-crazy too. You have to realize by now that I'm not going to lose it and start blowing holes in the neighborhood. Right?" he added suspiciously.

//No, I don't think you're about to 'lose it'.// Heero's monotone had grown a bit of a bite, and Wufei found himself nodding. A bad case of cabin fever for both of them. What did you expect, locking two tigers together for any length of time?

"I'll be fine, Yuy. Tell that to Une, and I'll show Sally myself tonight. As for the meeting, or whatever, heavens forbid I'd ever assume you'd - you'd stint on the job." Wufei clamped his jaw shut on the last words. He'd come perilously close to saying, ' heavens forbid I'd ever assume you'd put me before your duty'. The very thought of how close he'd come to that slip made the skin on his chest and back prickle. Maybe Sally could surgically remove this traitorous, delusional bit of his brain that was trying to trip him up and humiliate him in front of the only person who’s respect he cared about. 

//Very well. I might be awhile-//

"Then I'll see you when I see you," Wufei said a bit tightly.

//Yes. See you.//

Wufei grunted, disconnected the call and tossed the phone back down on his bedside table. He glared at it, temper actively roiling now that he was no longer at risk of snapping at his partner. Great, now he had over an hour to kill before he went to see Sally and enough frustration, sexual and otherwise, to blow a vein before the appointment. Better do something about that or he'd have a hard time convincing Sally of his serenity and sanity.

The punching bag would be made to suffer for the greater good once again.

 

 

Sally slipped into the booth and grabbed the cocktail menu in the same movement.

"Time for my favorite medication. What do you want, Wufei?"

"Juice."

"Of course. Do you ever drink?"

"No." Wufei settled into the booth and tried to appear sane and serene; it required a certain effort.

Sally had declared him A-OK physically, but said she was concerned about his mental state of health. It wasn't something she could palpate or measure during a physical however. She'd have better luck over a casual conversation. Wufei had asked her, in barely leashed annoyance, when she intended to have this casual conversation and had found himself invited out to dinner three seconds later, with the faint hint that being polite might get him out into the field a bit faster.

In hindsight, he'd walked right into that one.

He'd tried to reach Heero on his cell while Sally finished up in her lab, hoping to get an excuse from his partner not to go. But Heero's phone was off. Wufei left a message saying he'd be out for awhile and where, feeling like a prisoner contacting his parole officer.

Sally sipped her cognac with the relief of an injured soldier receiving morphine. Wufei glanced at the menu and wondered what would be the choice of a perfectly sane and serene warrior.

"This is nice." Sally put down her drink and looked around the diner as if it was the Ritz. "We should do this more often."

Is that an order? Wufei thought moodily. He hoped this wouldn't last too long. He wanted to go back to the house. He wanted to go back to the house and get laid.

Still, it was nice to see and talk to someone consistent for a change.

"Maybe we can do this again tomorrow night, or the following? Or at lunchtime?" Sally asked with what Wufei thought looked like forced casualness. "What with Heero being busy. It's a pain to eat alone."

Wufei stirred. Oh, this was likely to become a common occurrence, to have his partner out of the house in meetings? He almost felt like asking Sally if she and Heero had a conspiracy going to make sure Wufei ate properly at every meal, but that was hardly the way to convince the good doctor that he was getting over the mild paranoia of the first days.

"What's he working on, anyway?" he grumbled. Sally would probably know; she was involved in a lot of projects in her role as biochemical weapons expert, as well as general busy body and friend of Une's.

"I'd tell you, but it's classified," Sally answered, nodding seriously.

Wufei stared. "Classified?"

"Hmm-hm. Security rating H, highest there is."

Wufei slowly put down his orange juice. "Has my security clearance been dropped?" he asked tightly.

Sally promptly choked on her drink. "Wu- I was kidding!"

"What's this H thing then?"

Sally blushed. "Um, stands for Heero. You remember when I put you on full sick leave, that I told Une and Heero I meant _full_ , and not 'working at home like a dog'? That you should avoid stressful situations and workloads? Well, Heero apparently took me very seriously. He told everyone you're likely to talk to that if they gave you any case details or anything to work on, they'd be dealing with him." Wufei's jaw dropped. "He might have meant that he would deal with the work and get back to them, but no-one, not the toughest field agent, Sam, or even Une, looked ready to risk getting that wrong."

"I can't believe it."

"He didn't tell you? I'm not all that surprised. Guess he didn't want you getting all pissy about it." Sally grinned archly and leaned back against the cracked leather of the diner's seat. The industrial zone around Ops did not sport fine dining. "Well, I'm satisfied that you're physically fit again, and I'm sure that if you don't break down during dinner and start stabbing invisible enemies with your fork, that I'll be giving you clearance on the mental side too by the time we finish eating. However, I'm still keeping you on full sick leave for a few-"

"What?!" Wufei nearly spat out his juice. "You just said-"

"Just for a few days. Good god, man, you've been working like a maniac for a year, and don't even get me started on your life during the war. Consider it a vacation. You don't really want to do grunt work, do you?"

"No, I want to get back out on the field," Wufei ground out.

"You will, you will," Sally murmured as if she was placating a five year old. She grabbed a handful of peanuts and inspected them suspiciously. "But Heero won't be back for a few days anyway, so you might as well stay on full rest until he does. Then you can both go and knock some heads."

Won't...be back?

"What?!"

Sally glanced up from her peanuts in surprise. At the bar, a waitress turned to stare.

"What do you mean he won't be back?! He's at a meeting!"

Sally's mouth opened slightly, and her eyes widened in surprise. "Didn't Heero manage to reach you? He called me five minutes before you got to my office. Turned out it was more trouble than it was worth getting him to prepare someone else for this mission in a few hours, so when Une asked him to take it, he went with the flow. I assumed he contacted you right after he called me, to tell me you were on your way over by yourself. Said I should tell Sam if I detected any serious problem with your health. Foxwood is coordinating."

Wufei forced his clenched fists to relax and flattened his hands against the plastic table.

"Where is he?"

"Antarctica. That old base where Zechs rebuilt-"

"How long is he going to be gone?"

"I don't know, depends on what they find."

"'They'? He's gone with Sam's group?"

"No, this was a two-man job. Infiltration, recon. Unless they get themselves into trouble, in which case it's fire-fights, explosions, and the cavalry coming to the rescue." Sally glanced at him somberly. "I'm sorry this fire blew up on us out of nowhere. If I'd known, I'd have had you at the clinic this morning, tried to get you certified sooner. I'd feel better if you were the one with him. Armand's a good man, and this is not too tough a mission, but having a brand new partner-"

Brand new partner-

"-might throw Heero's game. I expect he'll be all right. He sounded more worried about you, actually. Made me promise to check in on you regularly, make sure you had someone to talk to - very insistent about that."

Wufei stared at the table. Something skittered at the corner of his vision. 

"I guess he was concerned, like myself, that you tend to bottle things up inside when you have problems. Now, I do not think that Susan Wu drugging you was in any way your fault, okay? But if you'd felt comfortable talking to someone, then maybe-"

Brand new partner.

"-the worst effects could have been avoided. It's hard to get perspective on your own troubles. And I understand you don't even talk to Heero that much - hey!"

The door slammed shut, drowning out Sally's call. Good thing he'd followed her over to the dinner with the bike rather than riding in her car. Otherwise he'd have had to run back to the workshop.

But he had to see.

He barely remembered the ride back. The beam of his bike's headlight seemed to hang, suspended in the darkness, illuminating nothing.

His hands were steady as he disabled the security. The door shut softly behind him. He already knew his partner was not at home, he could feel it in the quality of the silence around him. He didn't switch on the lights of the main room but went up directly to Heero's. He knocked briefly on the door, the automatic courtesy ingrained, and went in.

He didn't need to switch on the lights here either. Heero's room was so regimented it was easy to see if anything was missing. Wufei knew exactly where Heero kept the bag with his mission kit and his rifle case. They'd been living together for over a year after all, for over a year.

Gone.

Wufei nodded shortly and went to his own room, though he wasn't sure what he planned to do. His hand hesitated over the light switch, but he was reluctant to turn it on. Then he noticed something out of place. A piece of paper on his bed, faintly illuminated by the light shining through the blind's slats, a white addition against the dark of his bed covers.

The light switched on, and he blinked and started to frown.

On his bed. For some reason, that bothered him. Why not on the kitchen counter? He glared at the piece of paper, feeling anger starting to build, slowly but with the power of an avalanche. That Heero...would presume...would come in here...and-

The note held nothing unexpected: 'Job came up. Sam is contact. Be back in a few days.'

So Sam would be the one to tell Wufei if they ended up bringing Heero home in a body bag. The thought drifted like a hungry ghost through his mind.

The anger was rising, but it was the malicious edge to a growing storm of emotions that was making the piece of paper tremble beneath his fingers.

The feelings twisted around. Torn between striking out at Heero-...Brand new partner-

-and his own weaknesses. ‘Why don't you put me in a straitjacket... I'll see you when I see you...’ And all that month under the drug...

Is this my fault? The thought was so pitiful that it made his fingers clench over the note, crumpling its corner.

He left...He just left...

A little voice of reason pointed out that Heero had been very patient up till now. Heero, the perfect soldier, the man completely dedicated to a peace that he placed even before his life, had taken two months to help Wufei get back on his feet. Surely nothing else was owed.

No. Nothing.

The note drifted to the floor. Wufei turned on his heels, heading towards the dojo. If he didn't get some of this anger out of his system, he was going to- to do something- he didn't even know what any more.

He knew nothing apparently.

 

 

There were seven people sitting on the benches next to the start of the circuit. They wore the red tracksuits of first-year cadets and the eager air of those who'd not run this circuit before and who thought it looked like a really cool challenge.

Wufei dropped his bag and towel on the furthest bench, fifteen feet away without greeting them and finished warming up.

A few whispers drifted his way.

"This guy wasn't in our introductory class, was he?"

"Nah. He's not wearing the uniform anyway." Wufei was wearing his usual workout outfit: dark green fatigues and a dark blue tank top, with a black sweat jacket zipped up over it.

"Seen him before?"

"No. Maybe a new guy, joining in late? Hasn't got his trainers yet?"

Wufei ignored the speculations without even thinking about it.

"Doubt it, too young. I bet he's one of the officer’s kids. Come to run laps while waiting for daddy or something."

Someone giggled.

Wufei warmed up his shoulders. Lack of sleep was leaving him numb. The whole scene unfolded for him as if it were happening to someone else.

"Nice ass."

"Jeez, Alicia, get your hormones under control!" Cue more laughs and the sound of a little shoving match.

Wufei stopped his deep-knee bends. He'd warmed up a bit already, running over from the safe-house to here, a ten minute jog. He moved forward.

"Hey." One of the cadets had followed him towards the start of the circuit. "You running a lap on the track?"

Wufei turned to look at him. The boy was a year or so older than Wufei and taller by half a head, with ginger hair and deeply tanned complexion. He lost a bit of his grin at Wufei's silence, but then soldiered on, encouraged by the sounds of friendly support from behind.

"Want to compete? Run a race? First one to finish the lap?" The kid started to squat and straighten, warming up his legs. Someone giggled and whispered: "Don't be too hard on him, Ed."

Wufei dragged his voice from within. He hadn't spoken to anyone in four days. "Aren't you supposed to wait for your trainer before going onto the course?"

"Yeah, well, we won't do the obstacles, just the track." Ed shrugged and grinned at the race track that circled the confidence course. "Just a race, you know?"

His grin slowly disintegrated under Wufei's uncaring gaze.

"You were given an order," Wufei said softly. "If you are unable to follow such a simple directive, this does not bode well for your future in this agency."

Wufei turned away from Ed's gaping expression and started to run, glancing at his watch. "Who does he think he is?!" echoed briefly behind him, then he forgot all about them.

His feet found their rhythm. He'd been training intensively for four days now, using the hard edge of adrenaline, endorphins, fatigue and discipline to drown out the riot of feelings that tried to bypass his control and erupt whenever he gave himself a break.

He wasn't running the usual obstacle course; he was doing the 'Yuy-Chang' circuit. That's what they called it. He remembered hearing Foxwood talking to his special task-force; he always gave them extra training if they hadn't been on a mission in a week, to keep them at peak level. "Listen up, gang! Your lazy arses have gotten soft! I want you out there like you mean it! And you're doing the 'Yuy-Chang' circuit today!" Cue horrified groans and protests.

Heero had been beside him that day; they'd been about to run it themselves. His partner's face had stayed unreadable, but his shoulders had gone back and his spine had straightened in a full-body smirk that had made Wufei smile.

He didn't smile at the memory. He didn't scowl either. Four days of anger, of feeling betrayed, yet also unworthy, both guilty and abandoned, and a whole host of other emotions had left him feeling hollow. Or maybe it was the lack of proper sleep. He slept fitfully, mired in agitated and senseless, formless dreams, and he would jerk awake at the slightest noise outside the safe-house. The only thing active these days seemed to be a few dregs of anger and a bland sort of depression. They were so pale that by concentrating on building his body back up he could mostly ignore them and their cause.

One of the rules of Heero and Wufei's particular course were that they couldn't use any of the facilities to get over the obstacles unless doing so would make things harder. They coordinated their efforts; going at a dead run, they helped each other over the walls instead of using rope or net, plowed right through the water or ditch obstacles without bothering with the platforms, boosting each other up to the edge - a performance of synchronization, coordination, split-second timing, and mutual understanding. By himself, he had to use most of the obstacles properly, feeling a bit more morose each time.

He grabbed the dummy at the top of the high platform. It was as tall as he was; he was smaller than most agents. Normally Heero and he handled this obstacle unconventionally but efficiently, manhandling one dummy down at top speed between them, racing up and taking down the second. Wufei managed it by himself, holding the dummy in a rough hold that might spare a fellow agent's wounds. In the back of his mind drifted thoughts of Heero getting shot in Berlin. Or in Antarctica.

Obstacle followed obstacle, not in the usual order but in one that forced him to crisscross the whole course at a dead run. He used the beams to cross the moat, then another wall, scrambling lightly up the netting. He jumped from the twelve-foot barrier, landing gracefully in the sandpit, and glanced at his watch as he straightened. Better than yesterday.

Wufei took the turn away from the combat course and ran at full speed the fifty feet to the target range, unzipping his jacket as he ran. The grounds keeper always left a target out for them- for him. He smoothly pulled the Luger from its holster, blocked, aimed and fired three times, all in about two seconds, leaving a neat little clover leaf of bullet holes over the heart bullseye.

He slipped the gun back in its holster and darted back to the circuit. The tunnel, then another balance obstacle-

There was one final detour to their circuit: the combat training circle. A bitter taste filled his mouth once more as he found his feet taking him there automatically before he remembered that his partner wasn't here to round off their exercise with a one-point sparring match. There were training dummies off to one side. Wufei leapt at them. Two fists hammered into the hardened rubber of the dummy in quick succession. The wooden post supporting it groaned and protested, then creaked loudly as Wufei dropped back and delivered a full-powered scything kick to the torso that definitely killed the dummy, fueled as it was by a bitter frustration that his body acknowledged while his mind tried to ignore it. His leg protested a bit - his chi had been slightly unbalanced, he hadn't prepared for the impact sufficiently. Nothing damaged. He dropped back and ran easily towards the starting point, glancing at his watch critically. His time was still not up to what he expected of himself. His leg and shoulder were all right now, but his stamina was still a bit lacking. It was still better than most of Foxwood's taskforce. He didn't think Armand could beat it.

He noticed that all the cadets were standing and staring at him, gaping like a shoal of particularly dumb bright-red guppies. Their trainer had arrived while Wufei was running. He recognized her: Gerrie Wertz (or you could call her Gertrude, if you really wanted to die.) She was grinning wolfishly at him as he approached. Her notorious sense of humor must have kicked in; she clapped her hands and turned towards the cadets.

"As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, we have a couple of teenagers on the force. They run a different circuit than the adults. Don't worry, you guys are running the adult circuit. Now get started!"

She nodded at him kindly as he passed her - ignoring the stunned, horrified silence from the cadets - and Wufei found himself smiling back automatically. He grabbed his towel and bag and kept walking, not wanting to engage in conversation. He'd cool down and stretch on his way back to the house. He'd eat something, he didn't really care what, then he'd go to the target range, practice with the long-distance riffle. Concentration, focus and the satisfying punch of recoil against his shoulder. Then back to the house, practice his wushu. He was working on sequences he hadn't done since before his marriage, recalling old skills he'd let lapse to pilot a Gundam. And then-

And then...

Heero had left four days ago and Wufei was no longer wondering when he was going to come back.


	37. Chinese Poles, Part III

"If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow"  
\--- Chinese saying

 

 

Wufei watched the steam rise from the kettle, hypnotized. It was a pale ghost in the gray light of early dawn.

He'd have to call Sally tomorrow if he didn't sleep any better again tonight. She'd probably revoke his clean bill of health, and he couldn't blame her. What if this happened during a mission?

It wouldn't happen during a mission. Heero would be with him. And Heero, more than the safe-house, more than the elaborate security system, more than the Luger on his bedside table, was the key to Wufei feeling Safe.

Wufei closed his eyes.

Damn Susan. So ironic. She'd hounded him for revenge, for something he'd only been a helpless participant in. He'd sidestepped her trap and fallen promptly into another. She'd laugh if she knew. She had her revenge after all. She'd succeeded where Tsubarov and several OZ interrogators had failed; she'd broken the Dragon.

He'd been trying to deny it these past three weeks, struggling so hard to get back to normal. But these five days alone, the lack of sleep nibbling at his barriers, had left him exhausted and facing the bitter truth. What he'd said to Quatre, bleeding and broken inside, could not be unsaid, unlearned. He was weak. Pitifully weak. And very stupid, to emotionally fasten himself to someone like Heero. He'd created his own hell.

Wufei opened his eyes. Detached, he reached out his hand and wafted it through the steam. Back and forth, breaking it into small smoke signals, playing with the humid heat across the palm of his hand.

He didn't even know what he wanted from Heero. He couldn't put it into words. When he tried, it sounded wrong. He could only draw out its contours, like he was carving up the steam, and it was just about as evanescent. Affection? Tenderness? Quatre's words came back to him. No. Wufei felt it to the depth of his soul. He liked the fact that he and Heero were two tigers. He liked being with someone who could claw at his weaknesses, hone him like a blade. He had to fight to get Heero to call him an equal, but that was what made it worth while.

But it turned out that he wasn't Heero's equal. He'd slipped from the edge of perfection, and he had become, obviously, replaceable.

His fist closed over the steam, but it escaped him, trickling over his knuckles. He should probably turn the heat off now. But he couldn't tear his eyes away from the wispy white trail.

It was up to him to earn his place once more! The Antarctica job was not an arduous mission; Sally had assured him of that. For something harder, more desperate, Wufei would make sure that Heero would take no one else but him.

He waited for the flash of pride and arrogance that should accompany that thought. When it materialized, it was as inconsistent as the vapor rising from the furiously hissing kettle.

Yeah, he could cut that shape out of the vapor. What he wanted from Heero...was for his partner to stick with him even now, when he was struggling to regain his edge. Come what may.

Because Wufei would do that for Heero.

His fist was turning in and out of the hot vapor, but the realization of where his dazed mind had brought him once more burned much hotter, a sick, shameful heat like something that had fermented until it was ready to burst. He'd always been taught to never rely on others, never weaken himself for others, always stay aloof, detached. The perfect warrior was one who never faltered because of his feelings.

The perfect warrior was Heero Yuy.

Wufei shook himself and turned off the heat beneath the kettle with a snap. Irritated, he poured the water into the mug, watching it rise and color, swirls of brown.

Enough. He'd learned to dominate his worry over Heero when on a mission; he'd vanquish this as well. He'd prove to both Heero and himself that he could still be the soldier's partner. The anger - that had only been momentarily banked, hardly gone - returned, smoldering. Anger was easier to deal with than the morass of emotions that lurked at the edge of the exhausted numbness in his mind.

He watched the weaker stream of vapor rise from the mug, along with the scent of white tea. What should he do today, while that bloody partner of his was probably getting his useless ass killed in Antarctica? He'd been training himself to the edge of fatigue for days now, chasing sleep that still eluded him. Running the obstacle course yet again was probably not wise, not without a break. He wanted his physical fitness to be at its best when Heero returned. What else? Studying was pointless. It got real boring staring at the same page for hours on end, while the characters danced before his eyes and refused to make much sense. He didn't feel like talking to anybody. He had a few chores, but-

His hand was at his belt before he remembered that the Luger was upstairs on his bedside table. He stared, wide-eyed, and then he recognized, in that next instant, the figure that was at the door.

Heero stared back at him. He'd managed to open the door and startle Wufei, busy zoning out over a cup of tea. Great way of proving that he was back on the edge! Good job, Chang!

"You're up early," were Heero's first words. It was six in the morning, Wufei conceded silently, while a small part of him, the part he wanted to cut out with his sword, flinched at the implied criticism in that cold greeting; not sleeping was bad news in regards to his recent history.

He cast around for something to say, more and more desperately as the seconds dragged by and Heero started to frown. His partner closed the door, set the lock automatically, dumped a duffel bag and a rifle-case on the floor and walked towards the kitchen area without even removing his boots.

"How was the mission?" Wufei muttered, trying to keep his voice from cracking from disuse.

Heero shrugged. His eyes were still on Wufei's face.

"That good, huh?" Since Heero wasn't answering, Wufei had to provide both halves of the conversation.

"It was all right." Heero's voice was soft. He seemed to change his mind at the last minute, and instead of walking up to Wufei, he went to sit on the stool behind the counter.

Wufei wanted to ask what Armand's performance had been like, but the tiny part of him he was beginning to loathe had hidden his voice again. It was afraid of the answer. Coward.

Heero shifted. His hands were clasped in front of him. Wufei wondered why he didn't go take a shower, or go to bed, or say something. He just watched as Wufei took the tea strainer and carefully put it in the sink.

"What's this?" Heero tilted his head to read some characters flowing down a sheet of white paper on the counter. Wufei had the distinct impression that was not the question Heero had wanted to ask.

"Replying to a letter from my uncle Wai," Wufei answered,before taking a sip of tea, standing in front of the sink unit next to the kettle. He didn't feel like moving. His stool, next to Heero's, seemed to stare at him from under the island counter like a neglected friend.

"How is he?" Heero's voice couldn't be more neutral if it had been painted beige.

"Pretty good," Wufei replied. "He's over that virus that kept him bedridden last month and he's now back in business. He's coming to Earth next week, visiting some of the reconstruction sites throughout China." Why are we talking about this? "Beijing, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou... " Why didn't you wait for me? You know Sally might have certified me that very day. "He's very enthusiastic about it."

"Sounds like quite a tour."

"Yes, over a month." You don't give a fuck about Uncle Wai; you've never met him. Why are we chatting about him? "He takes time to visit the museums in the various towns, meet some of our far-flung family members who've migrated to Earth. He's invited me to join him, actually. He never took my disownment very seriously, and he knows I've never even been to some of these cities. But-"

"Maybe you should go."

Wufei froze, the mug not quite touching his lips.

Heero was looking at his hands clasped on the counter.

"What?" Wufei rather hoped he'd misunderstood that.

Heero glanced up at him then down again. "Maybe you should go. It's only a month. You could visit your-"

"Are you trying to get rid of me?!"

Wufei's words were nearly covered by the crash of his mug shattering as he slammed it down on the counter. He tossed the broken-off handle towards the sink without even looking, fury, disbelief and pain numbing him like freezing ice water.

Heero stared, eyes wide. Then he frowned and stood up.

"What is this?! 'Only a month'?! I've been out of action for over two! Do you think-"

He'd been gesturing and shouting, and Heero was suddenly right in front of him. Wufei started back as two strong hands grasped his own. The gesture was so unexpected, so...intimate. Wufei's anger stalled, while his body reacted quite differently to the touch, the promise that might-

Until he realized Heero was looking at his palm intently. Checking for shards from the shattered mug.

He tried to snatch his hand away. Heero looked at him then. Blue eyes somber, searching his face, showing not the slightest signs of worry at being within arms' reach of a furious warrior. After Wufei tugged again, Heero let his hand slip free. Fortunately, as Wufei was about to strike him with the other.

"I just thought you might need a break," Heero's voice was the usual monotone. A bit weary, though.

"A break. Right, because my last three weeks have been so strenuous," Wufei sneered savagely. "Well, you may not need me, Yuy, but I'm sick and tired of sitting around-"

Wufei started and almost struck back instinctively as two hands, lightning fast, fastened on either side of his face. The touch was so unusual that it stilled him as effectively as a nerve pinch. He felt his skin, his body, flush, but not with anger.

"I need you."

The words were simple, spontaneous. Firm. Wufei gaped, pinned by Heero's hands around his face and blue eyes holding him just as securely.

A blur, and he was staring at rough brown locks, and a mouth was pressing against his own.

Wufei was frozen, his mind stuttering over a protest he couldn't seen to formulate.

A strong hand gripped his waist, pulled them roughly together.

Wufei finally stirred, lifted his hands hesitantly. To push Heero away. Probably. Words were bubbling up in his mind. This doesn't solve anything- this doesn't answer my questions - why did you leave-

An alien sensation against his lips. A gentle flicker of tongue.

Wufei started, but Heero's hand at his waist kept them pressed together. Wufei's mouth opened instinctively in a gasp lost in the other's mouth, and Heero's tongue took advantage of the opportunity to caress Wufei's. His legs were nudged apart, Heero's thigh brushing against him.

The nascent thoughts, protests and questions were fed to a beast called lust. It roared, it purred. It promised that this would make everything right again, it would solve all the problems...

Just... don't think...

Teeth clicked gently against each other. A hand tilted Wufei's chin, then caressed his jaw, his throat. The tongue inside his mouth moved slowly, investigating every shiver it could find.

Wufei's hand had somehow snared itself in rough hair. The other one was at Heero's waist. Bodies pressed together. Skin, cloth, cloth, skin; all one warmth. The zipper of Heero's combat jacket's pocket was pulling slowly, one tooth at a time, across Wufei's nipple. His legs were caught awkwardly against Heero's, until the latter shifted, brushed Wufei's groin. The hilt of a utility knife in Heero's thigh holster was an uncomfortable counterpoint, but most of it was pleasure. Wufei found himself shifting to rub again, and he shivered as his hardening erection was teased by a seam in the rough fatigues.

The warm touch in his mouth pulled back, faded. He was left panting, lips open.

Heero's voice was soft, breath fluttering on Wufei's lips, against his tongue, before a warm mouth fastened on his again: "Watch your feet. Shards on the floor."

Hmmm...What floor...?

A hand drew a light caress down his back, rested on his hip, then dipped lower, to his thighs. Heero lifted slowly. Wufei found his legs rising and fastening around Heero's hips.

...On the counter? Against the wall... ?

Heero's tongue taunted his, curled, prowled around his mouth. His hands were hard on Wufei's thighs, as he maneuvered them towards the stairs. He stopped exploring Wufei's mouth to avoid biting his partner's tongue while he climbed the steps. Breath peppered and tickled Wufei's neck, hair caressed his cheek. The jolt of Heero's movements sent red hot pleasure through Wufei's veins.

Hmm, don't like to be carried. 'M not a damn woman...

Don't think...

His feet touched the floor - no more shards. They were in his room. Near the bed. But they weren't lying down.

Heero moved, palming Wufei's ass and rocking his hips forward at the same time. A slow, sensuous rhythm, while his tongue returned to its exploration. A faint memory stirred. L3...the club...Wufei's pulse was thundering in his throat, his wrists, his chest and groin. A distant flicker of surprise - he wasn't getting thrown on the bed. Not even getting his clothes pulled off. Heero's hips thrust. Pressure and warmth against Wufei's erection. His breath caught in a gasp, lost in Heero's mouth. The only music he could hear was his heartbeat as it melded into the silent rhythm.

A hand slipped beneath his tee-shirt. Just the fingertips, brushing his skin. Unusually delicate touches. They made him feel light and tingly, instead of pawed at and savage.

The bed touched his back. His clothes started to come off. Slowly.

Heero dropped small kisses, licks and nips on Wufei's skin as it appeared. His fingers were so gentle that Wufei could barely feel them, only the after-image of pleasure they left on his skin. Occasionally they were so light they tickled, and he squirmed and flinched away. They'd come back and soothe the irritated skin with stronger strokes, a bit clumsy but learning as they went along. Wufei was shivering continuously now.

His own hands were following their usual pattern, pawing at Heero, his clothes, the skin beneath. Heero said nothing, but his movements were insidious, edging away from the violence they usually courted, returning nothing but those light annoying touches that were, for some reason, not really as annoying as they should be. Wufei's fingers slipped over zippers and buttons, he grumbled inarticulately as the prize twisted out of his way, pulling them gently from his grasp, forcing him to fumble and make his way in slowly.

The mouth that refused to bite and claim as it usually did, dropped to Wufei's throat, gently licked his chest. Lips, tongue, and teeth briefly teased his nipple before Wufei squirmed; he'd never liked that sensation, it felt odd with only a very tiny echo of pleasure that couldn't begin to compensate for the overall unpleasantness. Heero immediately stopped, breath trickling over the wet patch he'd left - that wasn't so bad - then dropped further down, slowly.

Wufei's hands had finally managed to get Heero's chest bare. The boots thumped on the floor at some point, too. He heard the clink of a belt buckle being unfastened, and it set his heart to pulsing in his chest, his cock twitching. Heero managed to somehow lose his fatigues with minimal movements while his tongue played unhurriedly over Wufei's abs. Wufei lay back, unable to reach much of his partner now, and unwilling to move, to try, to think. To wonder what had happened to the two mating and fighting tigers that usually occupied the bed.

His hands remembered the routine. They scrabbled blindly at the bedside table's drawers. Pulled out the lube. He thrust it down blindly, towards his waist where a tongue was exploring the curve of his hipbone. The tube was tugged gently from his fingers, and he let a hand push his right leg further out of the way. Yes, there was no doubt as to who was going to get fucked at this point.

And he wanted it. His manly pride, the tiger within, had apparently been tamed by the pleasure petting him into a submission he couldn't even despise.

The sound of the tube opening was almost as erotic as the sound of the belt buckle had been. He stilled the shivers, relaxing himself and getting ready-

"Uhn!" Eyes shot open. He'd been expecting- but there was slick, wet, tantalizing heat around his erection instead, a tongue slowly tracing the dips and veins. The surprise threatened to shatter the shell around his mind, thought contaminating the pleasure - Too soon! Didn't make sense! Heero only ever went down on him to finish him off -

What was happening?! Why was Heero being so-

He'd been distracted from the more familiar feel of a lubed finger easing into him, the little stretch that teased the sensitive nerves into wanting more. Heero changed the angle slightly, slowly drawing the finger over and across - Wufei forgot to think, and when Heero took more of his cock into his mouth and sucked lightly, he forgot to breathe, too. He stared at the black light breaking into fractal patterns against his eyelids and let the beast play again, unfettered.

Wufei's breath was rasping in his lungs, a moan lurking behind the harsh sound. It thundered in his head. His fingers were caught in rough hair. Not fast enough! The rhythm was too slow, too-...Neck muscles like steel bands tightened against Wufei's frantic efforts, keeping the same tortuous pace. Fingers bruised Wufei's hips to keep him from moving, Heero's weight on his legs pinning him down. Something dark and lustful purred deep within him at this feeling of being made helpless, unable to refuse the pleasure. He muttered a few curses - could distinctly feel Heero's mouth tighten and curve into a smirk where it was fastened around him - and just let it happen.

A few more fingers he was only distantly aware of. Stinging as they went a bit too quickly. Dark pulsing red bliss as they nonetheless found his prostate and used it ruthlessly.

Then the stimulation stopped. He'd not come though, Heero had never increased the speed of the languid movements around Wufei's cock to the rhythm he should know as well as his pulse by now.

Wufei licked his lips and cracked open an eye - oh, no wonder everything had been dark - and tried to focus. The fingers had stopped stretching him and were now fastened, gummy, wet and warm, on his right hip, lifting him to - blunt pressure at his entrance. Ahhh, this part he knew. He rolled his hips up a bit; the hands steadied him and Heero's erection forced its way in. Stretching pain mingled with the pleasure - not prepped quite enough, but gods he couldn't have taken much more and from the way Heero's harsh breathing echoed his own, he wasn't the only one.

His hands left whatever they were furiously gripping to grasp his erection, instinctively. His body was on the edge and he wanted to- he just wanted!

Hands captured his own, tugged them gently away from his cock and pressed them up and back against the bed at shoulder height. Fingers laced with his, in a gesture that made Wufei pause and feel a simple joy, quite distinct from the lust and the frantic need. The hands were no longer at his hip though. Wufei lifted his legs up high around Heero's waist to keep them together and deepen the angle of penetration.

They were both gasping. Heero's mouth was a breath away from his own now, that same breath played sensuously across Wufei's lips.

"...Now?"

Wufei's eyes shot open. Heero's face, flushed, was near. Blue eyes bore down into his. Wufei swallowed. Heero never asked- Heero knew Wufei's body, knew when he was ready but- but Heero wasn't moving, was waiting for his- his consent, his involvement, his request for -...Wufei nodded - he was blushing like a fucking virgin. The strange pleasure, half shameful half delighted, at asking for this, asking for Heero to do this to him, burned along his skin, his face, neck, chest, all the way down to his loins.

He shivered as Heero pulled back slightly, pushed forward. Wufei watched Heero's eyes become hooded, his lips part as he thrust back in fully, then rocked back again. Fingers tightened, palm against palm as they held Wufei's hands down on the bed. Heero's body pinned his own just as effectively, using his weight to block Wufei's own tentative efforts to accelerate the rhythm. Wufei could only watch the body above his flex, back and forth, pulling and pushing at the pleasure within him, watch his lover's face as he took him, the pleasure his body was giving Heero written across his features, dimming his eyes...Heero shifted. Vision disappeared. White hot pleasure took its place as Heero moved the same way again, thrusting slowly and deliberately -

Again. And again. Wufei finally managed to let the air out of his lungs, a rush ending in a cry as the pleasure hit him again, in quickening peaks, like the spikes of his pulse, heart thundering. Heero's mouth fastened on his briefly, hovered to catch his tortured pants, licked his lips.

Wufei tugged frantically at the hand pinning his down. He needed- he needed- Heero's weight foiled him. The thrusts were faster now, savage, deep, and he needed-

Sweat freed his fingers, they slithered from Heero's fierce grasp. His cock was hot and echoing his frantic pulse beneath his hand, which started a rhythm of its own, clashing with Heero's. Wufei licked his lips; they were suddenly cold, without Heero's breath to warm them. His eyes opened. Heero had leaned back a bit - Heero's eyes were no longer - he was looking down. Watching as Wufei-

Wufei twisted and arched, his knuckles slamming into Heero's abs as he pulsed beneath his fingers.

...now... oh gods, now...

"Ahh!" The shout - not his - beyond shouting - crashed into his hot red bliss, pushed it further, unlocked areas that had never known pleasure before and obliterated them.

Heero's harsh gasps thundered against the sensitized skin of Wufei's shoulder. Wufei had ripped his other hand free and was clinging to Heero so hard his arms were cramping. He was wrapped around him, around his lover's body, around the throbbing wet heat within him. Heero's hips flexed in the aftershocks of his own climax. Wufei stared at the opposite wall over Heero's shoulder, stunned.

With a gasp he let go, his arms losing all their berserker strength in a rush, leaving him stranded against the sheets. He swallowed and his eyes closed. He didn't even wince as Heero untangled them and pulled back out. The sudden absence of warmth against his body made him shiver, but the feeling distant. He was...tired...

And he didn't want to start thinking again. He flinched away from that. There was pain there. And...he just wanted to sleep. He wanted to be asleep when Heero got up and went to his own bed or wherever he decided to go now...

Wufei turned over on his side, pulling his pillow towards him automatically. The brush of softness against his face was a feather touch of pleasure. He buried into it with a sigh.

Creak of bed, weight shifting. Rustle at the bedside table. It reminded Wufei that he had to get a towel to- ugh, this was going to stop him from sleeping, he hated the way semen cooled to tepid on his skin, against his thighs as-

The touch was so soft and hesitant it took him a second to recognize it for what it was. Cloth, rough like a cat's tongue, against his stomach. It wiped away the trickles, leaving a wet spot that quickly dried. The towel moved, a hand gently pushed it between his thighs. Wufei let his top leg curl forward instinctively, leaving the towel free to clean him. His back felt warm compared to the rest of his skin, which was beginning to shiver slightly.

...don't... think...

He shoved back an inch into that warmth. Stillness for a few seconds, while the skin of his back warmed nicely in contact with the heat he'd wanted. Then a few more swipes along the inside of his thighs, and a tug beneath his body. Wufei growled and curled up his legs, pressing further back against warm skin, letting the sheets and covers be pulled from beneath him. Then he was warm all over as they settled over him.

Warm. Safe. Don't think.

He dropped off to sleep like someone letting go of a lifeline. The arm that settled around his waist would keep him from falling too far.

 

 

Wufei's inner clock was telling him that he'd slept for two long, blissful hours, dreamless, serene, regenerating him like the dark loam under a tree's roots.

And now he was having a nightmare.

No. No more. His very soul groaned, ground down by the ceaseless, nightly pain.

He couldn't pin down what had alerted him, but something was wrong. His body felt numb, heavy, like he was somehow hauling his own corpse around. He stirred, or tried to, and whimpered as he realized he was immobilized, helpless.

"Chang?" The faintest whisper.

And now he knew. One of those. The nightmares which hurt the worst, especially when he woke up.

Oh Gods. Had it all be a dream? Had- had Heero even returned from Antarctica yet? Had he really touched Wufei like that?

No! It had all been a result of his pathetic, weak mind breaking down. Fool! He should have realized! No-one...no-one touched him like that.

Wufei tried to curl into a defensive ball but his body barely flinched. Feeling was beginning to return to his extremities, and the bad premonition he was having coalesced into an arm around his waist, someone pressed against his back.

No one ever held him like that, either. Definitely a dream.

"No..." It was meant to be a furious scream of denial, but it was barely a whisper. His lips felt as paralyzed as the rest, rough, cracked and strangely bruised. He tried to rip himself away - from the arm around his waist, and the dream which was cheating him so badly, giving him something he wanted desperately only to snatch it away.

"Chang? You okay?"

As if responding to his wishes, the hand left his waist. Relief and agony fought over possession of his emotions. Then he realized the dream wasn't done with him yet; the hand had drifted up over his shoulder and moved a loose strand of hair from his eyes.

"...not real..." the tiger's snarl was the mewl of a kitten, barely audible. Weak, Chang, weak! Pitiful!

"Another nightmare?" The hand drifted towards his shoulder and gave him a minute shake. His own nightmare was trying to wake him up. How precious! Even the illusory Heero didn't want to be around him and was trying to get him to dispel the hallucination. Wufei choked on the bitterness of the thought.

"Not real...you...don’t stay..." The words of denial tumbled out onto his pillow that he could barely feel beneath his cheek, but they didn't banish the nightmare. His senses were screaming that something was wrong, but he was too lethargic to be able to react.

The hand on his shoulder froze.

"Do you want me to?"

Wufei wanted to shake his head in furious denial but something was distracting him. The feel of skin brushing his back. Breath on the nape of his neck. Smell of sex, sweat, the faint laundry smell of bed sheets...Dream, Chang, it's a dream.

"Chang? Do you want me to? Or not?"

Wufei's eyes were half-open, but he couldn't see anything except for the wall next to his bed and a bit of the window, sun streaming through the blinds in a way that was obscenely cheerful considering the circumstances. He couldn't turn his head. Heero was lying behind him. No, no, he was dreaming that Heero was lying behind him!

Wasn't he?

"Wufei? What do you want me to do?" The voice was very soft, but still managed to sound exasperated, and Wufei tried to shrink away.

The hand, oddly clumsy, brushed another strand of hair from his eyes, and then fell to the back of his head. Tugged gently. Wufei's hair pulled a bit, some of the smaller, individual strands prickling as the fastener caught in them and they tugged on his scalp. Tiny pain. Wufei blinked. Then the fastener slipped from his hair. Awkward fingers tugged through his locks, combing them out, catching in tangles.

Wufei blinked again, and this time the flinch moved his slowly awakening body away from the source of pain and confusion. This gesture, with his hair - it felt familiar. Quatre had done this. His subconscious was blending Heero and Quatre together in his dream?

The hand had stilled in the ends of his hair, staying where it was as he twitched away from it.

"You don't like this..." There was a sigh; it sounded weary. Wufei's mind, slowly coming out of the fuzziness of sleep, slipped back into slight panic at that. Dreams where Heero criticized him, gave up on him, were almost as bad as the other ones, the taboo dreams Wufei didn't dare remember.

"No..." Wufei wasn't even sure he was answering the dream's question, or if it was just a general protest.

"You didn't seem to mind it when Winner did it."

Wufei caught the slight mutter but didn't know what to do with it. That didn't seem to fit into any dream context. His fingers twitched, and Wufei realized he could move them again. His body was his again. It felt oddly real.

"Why do you talk to him? Why can't you just tell me what you want?"

Wufei lay frozen on the cusp of realization.

He...he wasn't asleep.

And he doubted this was a hallucination. Though he was beginning to wish it was.

"Wha...?" His voice cracked. He was paralyzed, not by sleep but by rising horror.

"What can I do?" The whisper was faint, barely above the savage heart beat that was suddenly pounding in his chest. It sounded tentative but searching. It wanted an answer. "Why are you breaking down? Why now? Why is just being partners no longer enough? Why is this hurting you? Can't you just tell me how to fix this...?"

Wufei, eyes wide, stared blindly at the wall. He was still frozen, but this time it was with fear. If he moved, he'd have to confront the fact that this was real. He swallowed convulsively.

"...Chang?" The voice was suddenly at normal volume, cautious.

No. No, no, no-

Wufei slowly uncurled and rolled over, away from Heero, who was lying on his side on one elbow. The fingers he had in Wufei's hair caught for a second, calluses in fine strands, then released him. Heero was naked still; it looked like he'd been here the whole two hours Wufei had slept. Wufei slid onto his knees, almost to the end of the bed, staring.

Things were suddenly starting to make a lot of sense.

"Winner told you-" No, that wasn't it. He remembered the gesture to release his hair. 'You didn't seem to mind it when Winner did it.' "You were there?!"

Heero lay perfectly still, his body and face unreadable. But now Wufei had the key to the puzzle.

"You heard..." His mind was seamless and clear as crystal, containing only that one, single, luminescent fact.

"I did come back." Wufei started minutely at the words. Heero's absolute immobility had given him no clue that his partner would ever speak again. "And yes, I heard."

"You listened..." Wufei's voice was a whisper he barely recognized as his own.

"I came up the stairs just as I heard you say that you thought I would be following through with the arrest, or overseeing the crime-scene. I didn't want you to get mad at me for coming straight back to the house instead. I decided to hang around outside the door until I was sure you were asleep."

...That meant Heero had heard almost everything.

He'd come back...the crystal flashed a new facet. "You..." Wufei remembered Quatre's words, ' I think he'll want to be sure you're okay... ' "You were...worried...?" The last word was hoarse.

Heero slowly sat up. He was scowling slightly, his entire body language guarded and cautious.

"Of course I was worried. You were drugged, and you're a highly skilled fighter. If you'd snapped, grown violent, Winner wouldn't be able to do more than slow you down."

Wufei shattered.

The shards, cascading down inside him, slicing him to ribbons, looked familiar; they glittered with flashes of the past weeks, little scenes, bewildered questions, things he'd not been able to explain. They tumbled through his mind and took on new meaning. So that's what these last weeks had been about. Heero had known he'd broken. Had realized he was potentially dangerous. Heero had come home, watched him. Heero had heard.

Heero knew.

The breath rattled in Wufei's throat. His lungs felt as if they belonged to somebody else. From a distance, he saw Heero's eyes widen in alarm.

Heero knew. And the past weeks...it suddenly all made sense.

Wufei reached slowly for the loose pants at the foot of the bed, slipped them on without looking, as if they could make him feel less naked and violated.

"Chang-"

"You were wise." Was that his voice? "I'd threatened to shoot you not an hour before. I was obviously completely unreliable."

He couldn't bear to look at Heero, but the silence drew his eyes. Heero was staring at him, sitting up, one foot on the floor, and he looked puzzled and slightly worried. The voice Wufei had heard - his own - had not sounded like it was agreeing with anything.

"I knew you were under the influence of-"

"Yes. Interrogated. Broken. Ripped open and laid bare." The shards fell from Wufei's mouth. He saw Heero stiffen as they began to cut him too. "How fortunate you got to see what your partner is really made of. You should thank Susan when you have the occasion."

A scowl gathered like a storm cloud on Heero's face. "Thank her?"

"Yes, thank her for leaving you the tools to interrogate me again." Wufei's hand drifted towards the bed. His arm, his entire body, was beginning to vibrate with tension. "Tell me, Yuy. After I broke and told - and said that to Winner...when I slept for three days, did I also talk in my sleep while you were watching me then?"

Heero's jaw tightened.

"Do I still talk when I have nightmares? Do you creep up to my door and listen?" Was that a flinch? "Learn anything else that was any good? Was it Dr J who taught you this interrogation technique? Or did you just improvise?"

"Chang, I-..." Heero's eyes dropped as he glanced at the pillow where Wufei had been fighting against a nightmare that turned out to be all too real. "I just wanted to know if what you said was true. You never told me-"

"So you tricked me while I slept?!"

Heero was on his feet in a flash as the angry cry shattered the thick, cloying quiet.

"Why bother?! You heard all you needed to know when I talked to Winner! Shocked you, did I?! Horrified? It's a wonder you're still here!"

"Wh-"

"Though I suppose it was your job! Obviously something this weak and pitiful, already broken once, had a good chance of breaking again. Good thing you were watching me closely! And here I was trying to- to prove myself to you again! And I thought I was succeeding! But you'd already lowered your expectations so much - I didn't have to even try, did I! You were just happy I was half-way rational and not about to shoot anybody!"

He could see Heero's mouth moving, but Wufei's shouts covered any sugar-coated medicated words his partner might be trying to use. An ugly red tide was crashing against the backs of his eyes, causing his vision to twitch; his own weaknesses rising to drown him.

Heero knew!

Everything was falling into an ugly pattern. Everything Heero had done, said these past weeks-

Inconsistencies tried to catch Wufei's attention frantically; they were brutally cast aside. Heero's professed trust, his belief in Wufei's strength- Lies, to fool and confuse him, keep him subdued! He couldn't believe them! He could no longer afford to believe in them! Some trust! Heero hadn't even had- had the respect to tell him what he'd overheard. He'd just tried to keep Wufei from flying to pieces too badly and glue them back together into a semblance of something useful!

"Was that what you were trying to do?! Did you hope that throwing me a bone would keep me in line? Would insure that your handy sidekick didn't crack too badly under the pressure?!"

Wufei noted the way the blue eyes dilated sharply as he hit close to home.

"I used to believe that you were the perfect soldier, Yuy, but in that area you're pretty pathetic. That was the worst attempt at coddling someone I've ever seen!"

"That's bec-"

"Shut up!" Wufei's voice rose higher, louder, and Heero took a half step back that had him pressed defensively against the wall, wary. "Just tell me one thing, Yuy! What made you give up?!"

"G-give up?"

A stutter. A tiny flicker of sick pleasure; he'd knocked that proverbial stony demeanor on its ass after all. "Yes! When did you decide I was too much effort to maintain? Was it that hard, Yuy, to be nice to me for a couple of weeks, just so you could go on a few days' mission? Not worth it? At least Armand can hold your ammo and cover your back, and he doesn't require niceties when you get-"

Wufei choked, his throat closed in a sudden wheeze, his lungs seizing as if they could stop the next words from coming out. But it was too late. The new ugly thought that had taken possession of his soul leered and sank claws into his mind, refused to let go.

"Is this..." Breath whistled and Wufei took a few deep gasps, trying to clear the obstruction as Heero stared in growing alarm. Wufei didn't want to go there- but he had to know. He had to spit it out, throw it down where it could be seen.

"Wh-what is this then?!" Wufei gestured harshly, jerkily towards the soiled and rumpled sheets. "Why didn't you just tell me that I could leave with uncle Wai and not bother coming back?! Did you decide you have a use for me after all?! Was this what this was?!"

"What?" Heero's voice was low, visibly striving for calm, for control over the situation. His eyes flickered towards the bed. He was scowling, and he opened his mouth. Wufei knew it was just going to be more lies, asinine words to calm him down. No!

"So you'll be going on missions with Armand from now on, but you'll keep me around anyway? What's wrong, Yuy! Armand not interested in an _arrangement?!_ You'll take care of the missions, and I'm stress relief when you get back?! Is that what I am to you now, your whore?! Your- "

"No!" Heero shouted.

Wufei fell back one step, words guttering out in a gasp. Heero rarely raised his voice like that.

Heero's face was set in cold fury, but there was something else twisting his body; horror, pain, knotting his fists and making them tremble. But apart from that single denial, he said nothing.

Wufei took a shuddering breath. "No? Then what were these last weeks about, Yuy. Explain!"

Heero was panting as if they'd been dueling for hours. "I wanted to help you! I told you, I need you to-"

"Need me?! Yeah, I know that, Yuy!"

The words caught in Heero's mouth. "You-you know-"

"I know! I figured that out long ago! You need me! I'm your weapon, your shield - your stress relief when you get-" Heero was shaking his head violently, jaws clenching so hard that Wufei could hear teeth grind across the no man's land between them. "I may have this bloody great flaw, but I guess I'm still pretty useful. So you'll do what you need to, to keep me! I admire your valiant sacrifice! You'll really do anything for the mission! You'll lie, you'll pretend, you'll go against the grain and fake a few emotions! Hell, maybe that’s what this is? Was this for me rather than for you? You'll even sleep with me if that’s what you think it’ll take to keep me happy?" Heero twitched, eyes widening yet again. "You'll even pretend to feel more for me than your bloody mission allows? But it's all a front. A lie. Fuck, you're probably not even aware of it!"

"No." Heero's voice was ragged. But the denial didn't feel like it was entirely directed at Wufei. "That's...not true."

"Isn't it?! Tell me one thing, Yuy! Just one, single thing and for once in your life, answer me without thinking about your goddamn mission, if only- if only for- if you have any respect for me at all- if- Just tell me, what do you want from me?! Not need! Not a tool, not a utility, or a convenience; what do you want?!"

Heero blinked. That had not been the question he'd expected apparently.

"What?"

"It's pretty damn simple! What - do - you - want - fr-"

"Me?! But you're the one who wants more than -"

"I'm the one who's begging here, right?! I'm the one on his knees?! You know what, Yuy, I accepted a lot since I became your partner! My pride has been compromised, my honor put aside for the sake of the goddamn mission! But there's one thing I won't do; I won't take pity from you, or anyone! So tell me! If I'm not just a- an expediency! If any of these weeks together - if our partnership - is not a lie - _what do you want from me?!_ "

A tremor through steel muscles, like a whisper in the silence that stretched out, measured in Wufei's gasps of breath. When he'd remember Heero, it would be his body, not his expressionless eyes or his face. His body spoke a language that Wufei had been the only one to ever interpret and understand. Heero's solid frame trembled slightly, caging some emotion or other, or maybe the realization that Wufei was right and that there was, in fact, truly no emotions behind the cold logic; his attempts to hold Wufei together had been sheer necessity, like he'd once maintained Wing at all costs, and there was nothing else there.

Or maybe there was nothing there at all, not even that small self-knowledge; the wind blowing over empty eggshells...

Silence.

"Nothing. Right," Wufei whispered, turning blindly towards the door. "Good. At least we are clear on that." He reached for the knob. 

Footsteps behind him. A hand landed on his arm, jerked-

Wufei reacted on reflex, more like a wounded animal fighting a trap than a warrior.

Heero made no sound as he hit the ground, his shoulder thumping against the bed, his head whipped around by the backhand to his jaw.

Wufei was out the door before Heero had even slipped further to the floor. He ran down the stairs, pounded to the front door, stepped into his boots without lacing them, grabbed his jacket but didn't shrug it over his bare chest, threw the door open and ran.


	38. The Distance Between Need And Want, Part I

"To attract good fortune, spend a new coin on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend, and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon"  
\--- Chinese saying

 

 

Wufei checked the bag automatically after shrugging on the spare clothes in the men's room of the train station. Fake ID, money, cards to a secret account, a small palm top with some nasty hacker software -

\- ...hadn't Heero given him that... -

\- a change of clothes if he needed to get rid of bloodstains, a medical kit, and coded information on the cell that had got him out of Beijing discreetly, just in case he needed them again.

All the pilots had these bags near their safe-houses. Wufei had shot out of the place in his loose training pants, his boots and his jacket, without even his wallet or keys which were upstairs in his room. He'd run until he was clear and could hitch a ride - jacket zipped up - to the small train station with simple code-combination lockers where he'd stashed these emergency supplies over a year ago. No one knew the exact contents of his bag, anymore than he knew the contents of - of any of the others. No-one knew what fake name he could assume, or what accounts he might dip into. It was an old habit from the war, this ability to disappear nearly instantly, in a way that even if they interrogated -...one of the others, the enemy could never find him.

His mind was entirely focused on the mechanics of escape. He felt a momentary surge of anxiety at not having a cell phone, though. Could he call from the shuttle-port - no, that would be counter-productive, to leave such an obvious trace now. But he needed to check-...He let the thought slip from his mind, and instead he concentrated on getting off planet. Then he ran into another problem in front of the ticket counter.

Where to go?

Quatre? No. Too soon, too...difficult. Trowa was gods knew where, either on a mission or with the circus or with Quatre. That only left...Damn. Oh well.

It was only after the long trip to L2 and when he'd rapped twice on Duo's door that he realized there had been no compelling reason to stay with a Gundam pilot at all.

Too late now. He was not looking forward to the conversation that was going to ensue. But he needed some place to stay, to regroup. Someplace he could feel safe. If only he'd known where Barton was. He'd have rather stayed- something flashed before the spyhole, and Wufei lifted his head proudly.

The door opened and Trowa stared at him.

Wufei stared back, tensing automatically as any warrior did when faced with the unexpected.

Trowa leaned against the doorjamb, then shook himself and drew back, letting Wufei in without a word. Wufei accepted the unspoken offer without thinking, mind blank.

He knew Trowa was looking at him with those calm, green eyes that understood a lot without judging, without asking for more. Just like after Treize-

"Shit, if that's some evangelist type at the door, they're gonna be meeting the God of Dea-"

Wufei's mission-mindset shattered like a glass dome hit with a hammer. A nearly naked Shinigami with his jaw around his bare navel could do that.

Duo's hair was wet and straggling down his back and over one shoulder. He had a very small towel knotted low around his hips for a minute amount of decency.

_How do I always get myself into these situations?!_ Wufei's mind felt like it was going to crack under the sudden barrage of revelations these past few hours.

A scar, ragged like a lightning strike, traveled up from the edge of the towel over Duo's hip. He'd put on some muscle since the war.

_This is why I went for the whole 'solitary' thing to start with!_

Duo had some very interesting bite-marks over one shoulder and around one nipple, light red traces that were already fading. Not that Wufei really needed an illustration of what was going on here.

_I should have gone to Beijing! I know the networks there, they'd have hidden me-_

Trowa was also only half dressed - Wufei had spun away from Duo's slack jaw, wide eyes, and growing blush. The ex-mercenary had a few scars across his chest under the shirt he'd not buttoned. Wufei realized, to his embarrassment and confusion, that Trowa had opened the door in partially unzipped jeans and an open shirt, and Wufei was only just now noticing-

A hand slammed across the doorway, barring his way out.

Wufei's bag crashed to the floor as he fell into a fighting stance, shocked at Trowa's aggressive move - as well as his own impulse, he'd barely realized he was making for the door at high speeds. Again.

The full force of the last twelve hours slammed home, turning Wufei's vision red.

_Get. Out. Of. My-_

"Go ahead," Trowa whispered, so quietly it cut right through the screaming storm of feelings that were tearing Wufei's mind apart. "Punch me if it'll make you feel better. I guess I owe you one at that. But you're not going anywhere."

Wufei licked his lips. His vision cleared. He- he'd done enough harm-...he couldn't lose control of himself like that.

"I'll leave. I don't want to disturb..." he made a stiff and uncomfortable gesture at a neutral spot half-way between his two partially undressed friends.

"Don't be stupid," Duo's voice was just the right side of relaxed, as if there were nothing odd or excruciatingly embarrassing about this situation, as if this were just a funny thing they'd be telling the blokes at the bar later on. "You're staying. Tu casa es mi casa."

"You just said that Wufei's home is your home, Duo," Trowa said in much the same tone. "Very badly, I might add."

"Then this place is his and I'm only temporarily renting it, so he definitely needs to stay," Duo sniffed, rubbing his nose.

"But-"

"I was just leaving," Trowa supplied smoothly, forestalling whatever objection Wufei might make.

Wufei glared, some of the old fire returning. "Barton, just how dumb do you think I -" he broke off when Trowa jerked a thumb over his shoulder at two big bags and a knapsack waiting near the door. "Oh."

Embarrassed, he glanced at the two men from behind the curtain of his hair - stupidly enough, his bag had not contained a hair tie. He caught the tail ends of a Look between them. He knew it well. Not what it meant, per se, but what it signified: the near silent communication of two people who knew each other better than well.

So, this wasn't a one-off thing. Or even a casual affair. These two were intimate.

Why wasn't he even surprised? But what about Quatre? The thought drifted through his mind. It was suddenly too hard to fight it all. He was going to stay; between the two of them and this sudden bone-deep weariness, he wasn't going to be able to get out, so he might as well accept it without a fuss. Though he was rather glad Trowa was leaving, however unjust or petty that might sound. It would be hard enough to be around even one of his friends in his present state.

He turned and walked towards the kitchen area. Duo lived in a bachelor pad that was surprisingly big and airy, probably because it was on the wrong side of town and not too far from the scrap yards. There was a nice wood counter, fake wood, this being the colonies, but a good imitation. Wufei sat himself on one of the high chairs and leaned against the counter. Duo had vanished after that intense look, presumably - hopefully - to get dressed. Trowa had, Wufei guessed, silently agreed to stand guard until Duo was ready to take over.

Trowa said nothing, the same soothing nothing as the last time Wufei had been defeated. It had the same effect, too. It was like a shot of anesthetic, dulling the pain and allowing him to step back from it and examine it with some sort of detachment. He almost wished it was Duo leaving, but that, of course, was a bit too much to hope for, as well as being downright rude after Duo had offered to make Wufei's home his. Or whatever.

Maybe it was Trowa's presence, or maybe it was just that his subconscious knew he'd stopped running and had gone to ground, but finally the memories of the past few hours started to unfold, not screaming through his mind like a freight train, but with some semblance of method.

He wished some things unsaid and undone. But he'd been right to leave. He hoped.

He writhed with shame at the way he'd exploded. So much for self-control. But it had been too much to bear calmly, to have his weaknesses dragged to light, to learn that the one person he'd trusted utterly had been manipulating him these past weeks just because he needed a good partner at his back. Trying to wring his secrets and failings out of him while he slept; it reminded him too much of Susan. And what made it worse...Wufei realized he'd hit rock bottom as he let himself acknowledge this with barely a tremble of denial. What was worse was that on some level he'd enjoyed some of the things Heero had said and done recently, and he'd been hoping it was a sign of something evolving between them.

So ironic. At one point, he'd have gladly chopped off a couple of fingers to hear Heero say that he needed Wufei in that intense way. When had that become no longer enough? It was so tempting to blame Susan and her drugs, but not even Wufei could lie to himself that thoroughly, he thought with some disgust.

He heard Trowa say a soft goodbye to Duo, voice quiet but so warm. He didn't turn around, left them some privacy. He didn't expect Trowa to say goodbye to him, the ex-mercenary knew him better than that.

Then Duo was busying himself around the counter, hair still wet but braided. He was dressed in dark jeans and a large black tee-shirt with 'Kiss My Gundam!' written on it. He set some water to boil without comment and then, as an afterthought and without looking, tossed Wufei an elastic for his hair. Wufei hesitantly gathered the strands back and tied them, feeling a bit better, more in control. The silence was soothing as well. He was further surprised when Duo reached up to the upper part of a cabinet and blew the dust off of a pack of Wufei's favorite tea. Shinigami was momentarily defeated by the lack of tea-bags in the pack, which apparently caught him off guard. He dug around his drawers for a few minutes before producing a beaten-up tea-strainer from somewhere under the sink.

They sat in silence on either side of the counter and near opposite ends, Duo deliberately staying out of Wufei's overly-sensitive space. Wufei sipped the tea. The flavor had faded a bit but it was still good. Duo was obviously leaving him the room to work this through; there wasn't even the hint of impatience from him as he drank his coffee.

But Wufei's thoughts quickly came back to a standstill again. He knew that sooner or later, he'd have to talk to Duo. If only to break out of the blind loop he'd created for himself.

"Why were you so...loud during the war?"

Duo nearly spurted coffee on the counter. "Huh?!" That had obviously not been what he'd expected as a way to break the silence.

"Why were you always so-...in your face. Teasing us. Acting like you really didn't care about anything."

"Hey." Duo looked like he was a bit offended but trying to hide it. "I can be thoughtful when a buddy's in trouble, you know."

Wufei stared at him for a few seconds, and then realized where the misconception was coming. He waved a hand in vague apology. "I know that, I saw what you were like when we were on Peacemillion. You cared. Probably only Winner cared more. But why act like a-..."

"Like a street tough? 'S what I am, buddy. Product of L2. When you see so many people die, like you do in the slums, you can either take life seriously and join them, or stick your finger in the air, tell God to swivel on it, and go off like a rocket. Die the same, but a hell of a lot louder. I guess I was never one to die quiet."

Wufei snorted into his tea.

"And I like company. Makes it nicer when someone can hear the noise you make when you go, and get drunk over the crater you left. But you guys didn't play by the rules! It's kinda like a wolf pack. You either mate with it, or you outrank it, or you eat it. I got used to working with gangs, living in one. You constantly test and poke each other, ya know?"

Oh, Wufei knew very well. Yes, that made sense, in a way that was like a light switching on. Duo had been reaching for the same edge as Wufei and Heero, the same adrenaline rush, the same urge to prove to yourself that you were still tough, still alive, by baiting death - or Heero Yuy - again and again. He'd just used a different language, a different technique. Wufei had felt the edge of this explanation before, when he'd seen the real Duo aboard Peacemillion. But he'd never been sure of it, simply because it seemed just too impossibly suicidal in the midst of an already murderous war, that Duo would choose to tease and bait two such dangerous killers for his adrenaline rush.

"You were- you were riding me?" Despite this confirming his suspicions, Wufei still felt a bit dumbfounded. "Me and- you were playing us, just for fun? Seeing how far you could push us without actually getting hurt? I can't believe-" you could read us that well. And that Wufei had missed it so completely back then.

Duo's grin became positively lurid. "What, that I survived? Well, I never got hit, now did I. Either I'm a better player than you can ever believe, or I'm insanely lucky!"

Wufei stared, and suddenly something in him loosened. Oh, what the hell. If Maxwell could survive the war and not end up as that aforementioned big loud crater in the ground, Chang Wufei was certainly going to get over his latest mishaps.

"You little shit, Maxwell," he growled to hide a weak chuckle, and Duo beamed like it was the greatest of compliments.

The silence settled again. It wasn't the leaden silence of crypts though. It knew it was about to be broken and didn't fear it as much now.

"So...you're here," Duo finally said.

Wufei found himself nodding at his tea cup.

"You okay? I mean, physically?"

Wufei glanced up in surprise. Duo was looking him over very carefully.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Wufei asked, puzzled. Duo's gaze dropped away.

"Well...that bag's an emergency evac kit if I ever saw one, your, um, hair was loose, the knuckles on your right hand are bruised, I know you could be walking around with two bullet holes and barely show it, and...and if nothing else, I know what Heero's reflexes can be like..." the last was added in a whisper. Duo was staring at the counter top, tracing a grain of fake wood with his forefinger.

Wufei took a deep breath and released it slowly. "Duo, can I ask a favor of you?"

"Anything."

"Could you please call Yuy? Without letting him know I'm here? I..."

Duo was moving to the side-table. He lifted the vid phone and placed it on the kitchen counter by his coffee mug.

"I hit him." Wufei could barely lift his voice above a shamed whisper. "He tried to stop me from leaving. I need to make sure he's- but I don't want-..." oh, what the hell was he doing?! He should have called from the shuttle port! He should have gone ho- back to the house and checked himself! And damn his need to- to get some space to think. To get away.

Duo was silent for a moment, and Wufei stared at the teacup, not wanting to see what was in his friend's face. Finally there was a beep of numbers being typed.

"Quatre?"

Wufei glanced up in surprise. Duo's face was calm, set.

//What's wrong?// Quatre's voice was immediately tense.

"Quatre, can you do me a favor? Without asking me any questions?"

There was no answer, directly. But Wufei heard the sound of someone standing up from a chair abruptly, stepping across a room. A door closed, and then a beep through the speaker and a fizzle indicated a communication filter being set up. Duo's mouth twitched.

//Secure, go ahead.//

"Not quite that dramatic. It's nothing much. I just need someone who can tell a little white lie convincingly, and of course I immediately thought of you."

//That's nice,// Quatre countered, a small measure of dry amusement watering down the tension.

"Can you make up some good-sounding excuse and call Heero? He should be reachable on his cell."

There was silence at the other end of the line. Then Quatre's voice. //Can do. You okay?//

Duo smiled. It was small but very warm. "Hey, I said no questions," he whispered.

//Cut it out, Duo-//

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Something came up."

//What am I checking?//

"That he's answering his phone," Duo replied softly.

There was a silence on the other end of the line, followed by Quatre's terse voice. //I'll call back in a few minutes. Love you.// The last was said distractedly, like 'goodbye'. There was a click that coincided with Duo's wince.

Wufei stared at his teacup again as if it were the most fascinating object he'd ever encountered. It was, for the record, plain white, cheap, and it had a small chip on the edge.

Duo laughed, a chuckle that didn't indicate humor though it made a good imitation of it. "You've probably got a loaded question."

Wufei's eyes became blank as he eyed the cup, not that it was offering to help. "So do you, I should imagine."

"Ah. Well." Duo toyed with the end of his braid. "Maybe I'll start. Just so you know, Quatre, Trowa and me, we're sleeping together."

"...The three of you."

"Yep!" The mask of 'Who? Me? Care?' was back, but Wufei was pretty sure Duo did care, and would take any signs of disgust or reproof like a blow. The way his shoulder tensed, he was almost expecting it. It made Wufei a bit sad that Duo thought his old ally might attack him over something so trivial that was really none of his business anyway. Or that Duo would let it hurt him.

"Maxwell...Duo..." Wufei rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. "I thank you for your honesty and trust. Please allow me to return it. As it happens...and to be quite clear on the matter...my own personal life is such an utter fuck-up these days that if you were sleeping with Barton, Winner, every one of the Maguanacs and a couple of goats, I still wouldn't have the luxury of being unpleasant about it."

Duo exploded into startled laughter, spilling his coffee. "Good god, Chang! When did you go and grow a sense of humor!"

"I always had it," Wufei sniffed, a bit morosely. "I try not to use it with my friends. It's...not nice." He'd only ever used it against Heero. Just how screwed up was that, when you took a step back and considered it from a normal angle?

Duo's laughter died, and he sighed as he finished his coffee. "Yeah. Yeah, I remember." He reached without looking for a tea towel and wiped up the spill as if this required his entire concentration.

The silence settled again. It was dying by the second, as was Wufei. His nails bit into his palm. Surely Quatre would have called back by now if Heero had answered the phone right away. Any minute now, Quatre would have to conclude that Heero wasn't answering at all, and he would start calling around, trying to find him at work. Then call Une, Sam, Sally...how soon before someone could drive by the house...? Wufei was well aware he could kill someone with one well-aimed blow. In his ragged memory of the past hours, he couldn't remember how hard he'd hit-

"He'll be okay. Guy's indestructible," Duo muttered. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

"...I'm surprised that you...you still want me in your house." Heero was also Duo's friend.

"Why? Because you're human and lost your temper, and we're trained to be dangerous in those kinda conditions?" Duo growled, glaring reprovingly at Wufei. "I don't know what happened, Chang, but I do know that I've never seen you let fly at a friend unless extremely provoked. And if I tried to stop you from leaving when you really wanted to leave, I'd fully expect to find myself with a few teeth knocked loose. It's our way. Think I've never done anything in a moment of stress that I didn't regret later? You think I get in Quatre's way when he's got a full head of steam? Tro's not the same, he'd hurt himself if you crowd him, makes me double quick to dodge him and give him his space when he needs it. We just...there's rules, ya know?"

Yeah, Wufei knew exactly what Duo meant, even if no-one else outside their little group would. There were rules. If Heero had been storming out - not that that was conceivable - Wufei would also have tried to stop him. If only because he'd be furious at Heero for walking out on him, especially if he was winning the argument. But he wouldn't be surprised or particularly resentful when he woke up in the emergency room later. Angry, yes, but not-

The phone rang. Please gods-

"Quatre?"

//He's okay.// Quatre said quickly. Wufei's head spun with relief, and he braced himself discreetly against the counter.

"Of course he is," Duo snickered. "Just a false alarm. Okay, thanks-"

//Is Wufei there?//

"What?" Duo's body stilled in the middle of an over-the-top gesture of relief. To his credit, his eyes never even twitched towards Wufei.

//Sorry, sorry, you said no questions.// Quatre sounded harried. //Well, never mind. Heero's fine. He's got a bruise along the jaw, but hardly anything to worry about. Nothing, really. He's rather concerned, though. Apparently, Wufei and he had some kind of argument. Heero's been trying to find him.//

"Oh, for the love of Mike, I feel like an answering service," Duo muttered. Wufei reminded himself it was uncivil to glare at one's host. But Duo was right. He could understand Duo not calling Heero - Duo didn't like to lie, and Heero would have asked some pretty pointed questions, if not leapt straight to conclusions - but Quatre already knew Wufei was there, he was ready to bet.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Wufei's voice was soft, but it cut through Quatre's berating of Duo's lack of sensibilities.

There was a silence, then Duo, with a 'let's get our cards on the tables' look, swung the vid screen towards Wufei.

Quatre didn't even bother looking surprised; his eyes went carefully over Wufei's face and what he could see of his body. He looked tense and worried.

//Are you okay, Wufei?//

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" Wufei grumbled. "Why didn't you tell me? That Heero had heard what I said?"

Quatre was silent for a while. Then he sighed. //Because Heero said he would tell you himself.//

"And you believed him?" Wufei asked acidly.

//I don't think Heero intended to eavesdrop. I was furious too at first. I knew he was the last person you wanted to have heard that - but I think that he needed to hear it. And then he needed to think about it and internalize it. I was hoping he'd come to you when he'd thought it over.//

"And in the meantime, you decided to just let me flounder around in the dark! And-"

//Maybe I was just following your own repeated request to stay out of your business and not interfere in your relationship,// Quatre pointed out in a neutral voice that nonetheless managed to pack quite a punch.

"Oh, smooth," Wufei muttered. Well, it didn't matter now. "Fine, you can continue being discreet and stay out of it now."

//Sure, now that I've made your call for you, and found out you didn't accidentally kill your boyfriend, I'll butt out again,// Quatre countered sharply. Wufei's cup nearly cracked beneath his fingers. He stared at it - 'watch out; shards on the floor' - feeling the blow whip through every one of his shattered barriers. 

The tap of Duo's fingers against the screen snapped him out of his stunned state. 

"Steady on, lover. Let's let things calm down before we start shooting at them with both barrels."

//...I'm sorry. I know you didn't mean to hurt him, Wufei. I know how our reflexes-...Seriously, he's barely bruised. And he is worried-//

"Okay, okay. Let Auntie Maxwell's Broken Hearts Column take care of the rest." Duo turned the vid phone around and grinned into it. "Or rather, Uncle Daniels."

//What?! Duo, that won't solve anything.//

"I seem to recall it did! I'll talk to you later," Duo's eyes held a vibrant warmth that removed any sting from the curt dismissal. Wufei heard a grumble from the vid - something about 'being adults' - and then the disconnect beep.

"He's one to talk," Duo commented as he fished around a cabinet near the TV. "Do you know how long it took me and Trowa to drag him into bed before he self-destructed out of various layers of guilt and god-knows-what? Months! Nearly had a fucking nervous breakdown! Twice! Finally had to get him drunk - deadly thing, fruit punch, when Trowa makes it. Right." A bottle and two small glasses landed on the counter half way between them, as Duo took up his spot again outside of Wufei's personal space.

"I don't drink, Maxwell."

"Well, in these kinds of situation, I do!" Duo proclaimed. Wufei noted, with his investigator's eye, that the bottle was brand new and the glasses a bit dusty. Apparently these kinds of situations didn't occur very often.

Wufei was quite prepared to drink the entire bottle if he knew for certain that it would tell him, once and for all, if he'd done the right thing or not. He was normally so certain of himself...but not with his own emotions. Never with his own emotions. But he didn't think Mr. Daniels would be much help, except by giving him something else to worry about for a few hours, and Wufei wasn't such a coward that he had to escape pain that badly. He wasn't even sure he deserved that temporary relief.

If only he could think straight...

"I wouldn't mind some more tea before you get shit-faced, Maxwell," he muttered.

"Water's over there!" Duo replied with a toothy grin, jerking his chin at the sink. Wufei snorted and helped himself.

"You know...I'm not surprised that Quatre said he's worried," Duo said, after Wufei had gotten his tea and Maxwell had knocked back his first shot with the ritual 'whee!' afterwards. "Just to get one thing clear, you do know that Mr. Nerves-of-Steel, like, needs you, right?"

Wufei flinched. His hand jerked, cut off any additional words abruptly. No, don't go there. That was the source of the pain.

Duo licked his lips and poured another shot. The scent of the alcohol wafted from the glass he was turning in his fingers. He didn't seem in any hurry to down this one.

"It's just...well...you two-"

"Don't get all starry-eyed on me, Maxwell." Wufei meant it as a growl, but it came out a bit flat. "I got enough of that from Winner."

"Quatre is very perceptive, ya know," Duo said carefully.

"'Really worried', is he? Do you think Yuy actually said that?"

"Not a chance in hell," Duo agreed immediately. "But Quatre would know, talking to him."

"Well, I didn't talk to him, but let me run something past you. Quatre said the bruise was small," and didn't that say something a bit pitiful about Wufei's so-called warrior reflexes, however thankful he was at this point.

"Yeah?" Duo looked at him suspiciously over the shot he'd still not drunk.

"We don't have a vid phone at the house, Maxwell. There's only one place that Yuy can plug his cell into a vid screen, or have access to one where Quatre could get a hold of him that quickly. Do you want to take a guess where that is?"

Duo said nothing. His gaze had dropped to the counter, and he looked sad and troubled.

"So, let's take Quatre's nice picture of the young man whose, you'll forgive the term, 'boyfriend' just walked out on him after a fight sufficiently serious that it would leave him with any kind of bruise. He's so broken-hearted that he goes straight to work, to his desk with a convenient vid-phone attachment for his cell-"

"Okay," Duo interrupted hoarsely. He didn't seem to think this was funny. Maybe because Wufei was sort of poking fun at Quatre, and Duo was getting defensive of his- Good gods, Duo, Quatre and Trowa were in a threesome! Wufei didn't even know those actually existed in real life. He had the strange but oddly funny urge to ask Duo all sorts of questions as to how that worked exactly. If nothing else, Duo's reactions to that would probably be amusing.

It was easier to think of that than to think of Heero, sitting in Ops, working at his desk...

How can I be absolutely not surprised, not in the slightest, know he's like that to the deepest part of my being...and still let it hurt me? 

"Don't look like that, Maxwell," Wufei snapped, before finishing his tea. "You're giving Winner a run for his title of 'best wounded puppy imitation'."

"You were right about your sense of humor," Duo muttered, then tossed back his shot. Wufei shrugged. At this point, what did it matter?

"I knew what I was getting myself into. Anything that happened after that was my fault," Wufei elaborated softly. Heero had been nothing but himself - well, bar that parody these last few weeks - and it was Wufei's own weaknesses that had betrayed him at the last. There was a certain justice to it. Oddly, it made him feel better. It made it more something that had been foreordained, and thus not avoidable by any actions on his part.

"Yes, but it's not like either of you had a choice."

Wufei glanced up at Duo in surprise. He got an acid glare in return. "Don't go thinking I'm a chump. Neither is Quatre. We've been through the same shit you have. Which is probably why you're here instead of getting wasted in some bar in Brussels."

Wufei glared at his cup, wanting to argue just on principle, but he knew Duo was right. Quatre had known enough not to say anything about their arrangement unless asked, and still try to help them anyway.

"I don't imagine for a nano-second that you guys have the world's greatest romance. In fact I'm amazed you didn't kill each other three weeks after getting started. But even if you had blown yourselves up, along with most of your neighborhood, that would still have been better than the alternative of being alone. All five of us..." Duo's voice was suddenly soft, almost amused in a wry way. "The five of us, we're damaged goods, Chang. We're fucked in the head. We had to be practically from the start, to be pilots. We're seventeen-year-old ex-terrorists, we killed more people between us than a plague, and we carried the weight of the world on our shoulders. The whole fucking world, just the five of us.

"And it crushed us. We can't stand on our own any more. Not even Heero Yuy."

Duo shrugged and downed another shot. He was only filling the glasses up half way, Wufei noted. Then again, Duo probably wasn't any more used to drinking than any of the rest of them. Wufei wondered what a drunk Shinigami would be like and decided to get Maxwell to slow down.

"Just don't go thinking that we can't understand that you needed each other while still ending up in some kind of fucked-up tangle. If you need any kind of illustration, look at me an' Quatre an' Tro. Think that was easy? Think that was written in the stars? Think we even had so much as a choice?"

Wufei looked at him, puzzled, and Duo snorted a chuckle into his empty glass and then wrinkled his nose, probably startled at inhaling the fumes. "Get real. I mean, hell, I'm not asking for much. You give me three hots and a cot, and I'm in heaven. Nothing like the L2 slums to lower your expectations in life. You add two lovely bodies - guys who can actually understand why you wake up fighting every third night - and I'm in fucking nirvana. But the others...? Tro would rather not care for anybody, except it's too late for that now. He's stuck. With us. Even after all we did to him during the war, Quatre shooting him down and me dragging him back again. At least he's bi! Kinda. I mean, well, he's a merc. And he's picky for a merc, which means he prefers his lays with two legs. But to tell you the truth, if Tro had his way, he'd only sleep with pros. Pay and leave. Middle-aged female hookers, that’s his thing. Funny, heh? He prefers them to be a few years older. Okay, not middle-aged, say, twenty-three, twenty-five...I dunno, maybe he's got some sorta fetish, he never said. But at least he'll sleep with a guy! Quatre was straighter than a poker! God, it took a long time to get him into bed. Did I mention the fruit punch? And he still won't bottom, and we've been together almost six months now. Er... "

Duo looked at Wufei who'd finally managed to make his strangled coughs loud enough to attract attention.

"What's wrong, Fei? Too much information?"

"A bit, yes." Wufei cleared his throat and cast around for something neutral to say. "So, you guys have only been together a few months?"

"A few months?" Duo echoed, looking at him owlishly. "Six! For guys our age, that's like a fucking marriage."

"I assumed...I thought, aboard Peacemillion-"

"God, we were barely sixteen, about to die and with enough baggage to choke a horse! Not a chance- waitaminute-" Duo stared at him incredulously. "You're not saying- I mean, you and Heero hooked up when you went to Brussels, right?"

Wufei didn't bother to ask how Duo knew they'd hooked up in the first place. Quatre had probably told him. It had rather been assumed Duo knew during the entire conversation and indeed since Wufei had shown up on his doorstep.

"Since when have you two been together?!" Duo stared at him, amazed at the lengthening silence.

Since a bed in Italy, white comforter curling beneath awkward fingers-...

Well, no, that wasn't the beginning.

Since a savage screw against a wall in the grip of battle bloodshed and lust-...

Well, okay, but technically-

Since his back was slammed onto the floor, smell of old wheat and engine oil in his nose, feeling affronted and embarrassed-

Really? No, that didn't count.

"Since near the start of the war," Wufei answered curtly.

"You're shitting me?!" Duo choked. His eyes were perfectly round. "You guys - all that time - you- aboard Peacemillion- you-...whoa."

There was a stunned silence for a few minutes - well, stunned on one side. Then Duo poured himself another shot. Wufei went to get more tea and wondered about the curative properties of alcohol.

"That's like...two years," Duo suddenly said, sounding awed.

"If it took you that long to do the maths, Maxwell, then maybe you should stop drinking."

"It just struck me." He seemed both amazed and impressed.

Two years. But Wufei remembered the prickle of what he now recognized as jealousy as he watched Quatre and Trowa embrace passionately; the warmth in Duo's eyes as he looked at his lovers.

"It's not the same thing," he muttered. "It was need. Pure and simple. Heero only asked me because he knew I had the- " Wufei's lips curled " - the 'emotional detachment and focus' to not let it become something else."

Duo wisely said nothing. The words 'but it obviously did' hung around them in silence.

"Can't say I understand what 'emotional detachment' means," Duo finally said diplomatically. "But as for need, well, as I said, that explains why me and the others are in our slightly unusual situation. We needed each other. Mind you, if something else falls out, we'll not throw it away."

Wufei remembered the looks exchanged, the warmth he'd sensed. He had the feeling that something else than raw need had indeed 'fallen out' and that they'd taken it and kept it safe. 

"Are you happy?" he asked, almost against his will.

"Me, Quatre, and Trowa? When we're not feeling guilty about it, or shell-shocked, or cut off from real life, or bleak, yeah, we get by. Ain't no fucking Romeo and- Romeo and Romeo! But we're there for each other. That's probably more than we deserve, I'm sure a lotta dead people would say. Tro said it nicely when we were all in bed together at one point - that doesn't happen often, it feels kinda weird, even for me. Ah, too much info again, I take it. Here, use the tea towel, it already has coffee stains on it, tea stains won't hurt it. Anyway. Tro told us about this saying they had in the merc group he was in. Three boughs can be snapped but not if you weave them together. It's supposed to mean you stick by your unit to be strong, which is kinda ironic when you consider what happened- anyway, that's what we have. Alone, we'd snap. We can only make it together. So happy, or not...well, we'll take what we get, but that's not what matters. We went through so much, we ain't strong enough to survive this bloody peace and the after-effects of the war by ourselves. So we weave around each other, support each other. If there were just two of us, we'd feed off each other and drive each other crazy, s'good thing we managed to drag Quatre in. Did I mention the fruit punch?"

"Did I mention you should stop drinking now?" The liquid in the bottle had taken a bit of a dip.

Duo shrugged, threw back the shot and poured another.

"Now you two...you and Yuy, you're like an egg."

"An egg."

"Yeah. You know, the white and the yolk? Self-contained, not...blending, not mixing up or borrowing bits from one another to strengthen your weak spots, but you're a whole, nonetheless. Right? Can't really imagine one without the other now. Not on a battle field."

Duo stared into the glass, and then his face twitched with a faint sheepish grin.

"Of course, when I say an egg, I don't mean the fragile kind with a little mother bird fussing over it, right? Definitely hard-boiled. Very hard. Like, forty minutes in boiling water, could-use-it-for-ammo type egg...Can you cook eggs in a pressure cooker?"

Wufei leaned slowly across and discreetly moved the bottle out of reach. Duo, staring thoughtfully at his glass, appeared not to notice.

"Or what was that...? What do you Chinese eat? Thousand-year-old eggs? That tough."

"Really." Wufei found that even his sarcasm sounded tired.

"Yeah. What is that stuff anyway? Don't eggs go bad after awhile?"

Wufei stared at the bottle.

"Saw a picture of one once," Duo continued dreamily, twiddling the shot glass in his fingers. "In the window of a restaurant in Piniang before a job. Looked like a rock. But surely if it's fossilized, it can't be edible. I mean, I know the Chinese eat some strange-"

"They're not stone."

He felt Duo pause in his motion to reach for the bottle.

"Thousand-year-old eggs are normal duck eggs treated for a hundred days in a mixture of lime, ash, salt, and tea." Wufei's voice sounded neutral and scholarly to his own ears.

"Sounds grisly."

"Yes. It's a pretty rough treatment," Wufei agreed distantly.

"And this is edible?" Duo drawled.

"They ferment, I understand. It tastes a bit like cheese. It's an acquired taste."

"No shit."

"The lime and ash stain and pit the shell. They can look like stone and the name suggests fossilization. But in actuality..."

Wufei stood, shoving the stool back, and picked up his bag.

"In actuality, they are quite fragile. I have to go."

Duo looked up blearily from where he was glaring at the bottle with suspicion, as if he was wondering what it had to do with his current state of fuzziness.

"Say what?"

Wufei picked up his bag and headed towards the door.

"I have to go home."

"Huh?! But you just got here!"

Wufei knew that all too well, and was calling himself an idiot in every language he knew for wasting his time on a useless trip to L2, but that was not going to stop him from doing the right thing.

"Er- Wufei! Wait!" Duo's stool nearly toppled and he leaned against the other end of the counter. "It's past nine at night, and this is L2. You won't find an earthbound shuttle at this hour."

"I might catch the last one. When was Trowa's?"

"Um," Duo looked sheepish. "Tomorrow morning early. He's, ah, probably found a motel by now."

Wufei started to glare but then decided he didn't have the time. "I'll see what they have, otherwise I'll-"

"Hey, Heero's fine, remember? And he'll be there when you get there. Maybe you should take some time. I know what it's like, to want to get away from a situation just for a bit. I mean, you were pretty shook up. Maybe-"

"It's not-" Wufei took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm not saying I was wrong, and I'm not saying I'm going back for good. I might show up here again tomorrow night. If...if you don't mind."

"I won't even bother answering that," Duo sniffed.

"But we...I asked him a question, and I didn't wait for-...we need to talk. We both hate to, and it'll probably get ugly, but that's not- look, I just have to go."

"I know." Duo had sighed during Wufei's attempts to get a straight sentence out, and he was now rummaging in his back pocket. He tossed a small set of keys towards Wufei across the room. "Here. You won't even find a taxi around here this time of night, and I can't drive you. Car's in the street out front, just leave it in long-term parking, I'll pick it up tomorrow. Yeah, yeah," Duo waved away Wufei's attempts to refuse and focused on the vid-screen, running through memorized numbers. "Just go. I don't think you'll catch the last shuttle, but just stick around the information desk, okay? I'll see if I can arrange a ride before tomorrow."

"Duo-"

"Go!"


	39. The Distance Between Need And Want, Part II

"Force tells weak from strong for a time; truth tells right from wrong for all time."  
\--- Chinese saying

 

 

Wufei missed the last shuttle by twenty-five minutes. He wandered over to the information desk, mind buzzing. After half an hour of staring blindly at advertisements for local hotels, a big man in overalls and a three-day-old beard showed up and asked him if Wufei was the guy that he was meant to pick up to take to Earth. He identified himself as Captain Jules, of the Sweeper corvette Mariah. He didn't ask for Wufei's name, nor did he seem particularly surprised when Wufei followed him without a word.

Don't think.

That was a pretty hopeless order for his mind to follow; the only way Wufei would be able to not think would be to go deep into meditation, and he wouldn't be able to do that surrounded by a rowdy Sweeper crew, or anybody for that matter.

Don't think. It's pointless.

All Heero had said, all he’d done the last few weeks...Wufei didn’t know what he meant by it, what he’d been thinking. As Duo had unwittingly pointed out, appearances could be deceiving. Wufei had slapped his own interpretations on Heero's behavior - out of fear, out of self-loathing for his own weaknesses. But he couldn't be sure. He thought he understood his partner - but hadn't Heero thought the same thing about him? Wufei had managed to hide a lot from him for a while now, even as he was hiding it from himself.

Maybe there could have been another explanation for Heero's behavior. Certainly, Heero needed him, a convenient sword at his back, that was true; but as the three other pilots had apparently discovered, need didn't automatically preclude anything else, anything deeper.

If I can imagine Heero Yuy capable of that, then I'm probably on drugs again, Wufei thought savagely.

But I can't be certain until he actually tells me, he immediately countered. He glowered at the arm-rest of the flight seat he'd chosen; the internal argument was giving him a headache.

Wufei hadn't given Heero much of a chance to elaborate either way, just tore right into him, verbally flayed him, and then left before his partner had had time to catch his breath. Wufei decided, trying not to punch the bulkhead, that he couldn't have handled that worse if he'd tried. Had he been trying to break them up?!

Yes, maybe he had been. Maybe after the tensions of the past weeks, the five days of waiting for Heero...the two years of waiting for Heero...maybe it just felt good to sever the tie, to stop the uncertainty, the ever-present temptation of his own weaknesses, his own want.

You went and asked him what he wanted...

Fool...

Heero Yuy has probably never had a 'want' in his life. He was trained right out of them at the earliest age.

You knew that when you hooked up with him. It wasn’t a problem back then.

It was as if Heero was whispering in his ear again. Why is just being partners no longer enough?

Wufei didn't know.

But he didn't think he could afford to ignore it any longer, if the blast radius of his explosion last morning was any indication. Make or break, he had to confront Heero - and himself - and figure out what each one of them wanted, if anything, and if they could live without it. Actually, if Heero was even capable of wanting anything more from their partnership, he would probably not be able to put it into words. Hell, if it came down to the bare bones of the matter, Wufei could shout and rant, but he wasn't really able to formulate exactly why he was unhappy with their present arrangement either.

Wufei closed his eyes and forced himself into a light trance, as much as he could in an unsecured location. The Mariah wasn't a passenger ship, and it was small even for a corvette. Wufei had helped load the few remaining crates onto the ship, after he'd used his war-time skills to slip past customs, notorious for their lack of understanding of spur-of-the-moment travel. He was now in a nook off of the main storage facility with half the crew twenty feet away, playing poker and trying not to look at him.

He was going to stop thinking. And he was going back. And once Heero had returned the favor of that farewell punch, Wufei would do what it took, wait as long as he needed to, just stand there and stare if that was required, and get Heero to tell him - or show him - what he wanted. If anything. Then...he'd know.

And then he could march out the door.

Or...not. Depending.

No point in thinking about it until he had all the facts in hand.

Wufei's eyes opened and he glared at the rough metal of the bulkhead, the divot of a pressure monitor, and a small scrawl that declared that Jules was an asshole who couldn't get laid in a cat-house.

He was a scholar, a disciplined intellectual, a warrior of steel will, and he'd just discovered what the Zen masters had been saying all along.

Not thinking about anything was very hard to do.

 

 

Wufei could feel Jules and his first mate stare at him as he left. It was inquisitive, respectful and slightly frightened. For an instant Wufei saw it from their point of view. An urgent call from 'Sweeper Two', and they obviously knew who that was, and who he had been. Asking them to pick up and smuggle to earth a dark, mysterious young man, tense as a knife, hardly speaking a word, glaring at the bulkhead the entire trip as if he were plotting an excruciating death for it. They might even have caught the way he'd squared his shoulders and scowled as his feet hit the tarmac of the runway.

They probably think I'm here on a suicide mission, Wufei reflected.

They may not be entirely wrong.

An hour later he was standing in front of the workshop's door. The code on it had not been changed. That was already a positive sign. Wartime Heero Yuy would have probably made sure that an unreliable, emotional partner couldn't come near him again.

Wufei crept inside, slipped off his boots. It was nearly four in the morning in Brussels. He'd not taken into account the time differences between L2 and Europe when he'd made his spontaneous decision to come back and have it out with his partner as soon as possible.

The workshop's main room was completely unchanged. He wondered why he'd expected otherwise. Only the shards of his cup had been swept up. The big room with its utilitarian sections was achingly familiar, as were the faint scents of sweat, oil from the toolshop, and old cooking smells hanging in the air. His feet brushed against concrete, the springboard floor, linoleum as he made his way to the stairs.

There was a very dim light under Heero's door. Wufei felt his heart twist in his chest with tension. He'd felt this way when he'd confronted Treize, when all his battles and trials had culminated into a final moment of truth.

Still, it was late. Or early. If Heero was sleeping...Coward, Wufei thought. But the conversation that had to ensue was not one Wufei wished to conduct while they were both tired. No, that would probably lead to disaster. He'd rest, and get up when Heero did. If Heero decided to show up right away and continue their discussion - or punch him - then so be it. It was his partner's call now, Wufei decided as he opened his door.

His room had been emptied.

Wufei stared around him in stunned disbelief. His first movement to turn on the light remained frozen in mid-motion. A cold sinking feeling started pulling his guts down to his boots.

The room felt alien. The familiarity of its box-like shape highlighted the absence of the furniture that had been there for over a year. Wufei found himself leaning against the doorjamb. His eyes searched the room again and again as if normality might be hidden in one of its corners.

There was nothing left in there that belonged to him.

So...Heero had shown Wufei what he wanted.

The room wasn't actually empty. Heero's desk had been shoved against the far wall. His chair was positioned neatly in front of the laptop's docking station. There was a set of metal shelves next to it, also taken from Heero's room along with the desk, containing the gaggle of computer circuits, mother boards, chips and electrical components Heero liked to toy with in his spare time.

Wufei found himself nodding distantly. Quatre had been right; Heero could certainly express himself quite adequately with few or no words when he wanted to.

Wufei had known - grimly, realistically - that this was a likely outcome of the discussion they were about to have. But the abruptness and finality of this, and the fact that Heero had not even waited to hear from his partner before he'd made up his mind, caught him short.

He turned numbly towards the stairs, then went back two steps to pick up the bag that had slipped from his shoulder without his realizing. Abrupt and final, but this was Heero's prerogative.

No. No, it wasn't.

The objection came, not with a wash of fury, but with a calm resolve.

No. Wufei had been wrong to leave like he had, but Heero was also wrong in kicking him out of the house- out of their house without a single word.

Wufei didn't particularly hope to change Heero's mind, that was probably the definition of an immovable object that would defeat even Archimedes's lever. But...two years. Two years of blood and battles and brotherhood between them, whatever else had happened. That deserved at least a few words. On both their parts. Two wrongs did not make anything right.

He dropped the bag in the hallway again and walked towards the thin thread of light under Heero's door. Hopefully his partner would not become violent. Wufei did not want a fight. He just wanted this confirmed, in Heero's own words, or even from an icy silence and a deadly scowl. And he wanted to tell Heero that he was sorry he'd acted so badly before, because even if it was obvious now that Wufei had been right, entirely right in the way he'd interpreted Heero's actions these past weeks, he shouldn't have left until Heero had had his say. That decided, Wufei drew himself up before the door and knocked gently.

He didn't wait for an answer, just the prudent three seconds it would take for Heero to wake up, if he'd been asleep, and put the Glock back under the pillow. Or at least wake up enough where he wouldn't shoot anyone coming into his room out of hand.

A twist of the knob and a shove allowed the door to swing open, though Wufei prudently didn't step into the room right away, waiting for a sign-

For the second time that night, the contents of his chest turned to ice. This time it was in pure shock and confusion.

His dresser was standing against the opposite wall, the sight jarring in this unusual setting.

Had Heero decided to use his furniture?

He knew that wasn't right even as it occurred to him. He took a sharp breath and walked through the door, glancing around.

He'd not had many possessions in his room; he used it for meditation, and that required few distractions. The little that had been his was now here. The mat he used to meditate on was rolled up against the wall near the door. The dresser, presumably with his clothes, was right in front of him. A few books he'd been studying were stacked on it. The bedside table was a few feet away, his reading lamp was on it and provided the pale yellow light illuminating the scene, next to his- his bed-...

The bed-frame was nowhere to be seen. But Wufei realized - after a few confused seconds of trying to understand what he was looking at - that the mattress had been taken from the frame and put on the floor in the corner where Heero's bunk used to be. Heero's small and narrow mattress had been set alongside it. Both had been laid with sheets and a blanket, which Wufei realized was two sleeping bags zipped together, to make something big enough to cover the arrangement. 

Heero was sitting up in the ‘bed’; he was leaning back against the wall, arms crossed over his bare chest, his face set and unreadable, his shoulders hunched slightly, on the defensive. A bruise darkened the skin of his right cheek in the dim light - pretty small bruise, Wufei noted distractedly, he had been too upset to adjust the blow.

The silence had the quality of the one found in temples.

Wufei licked his lips and tried to think of something to say, when he really didn't have a clue. Words just...

He realized that one of the corners of the zipped-up-sleeping-bags-turned-blanket was turned down on the side nearest the door. Wufei's pillow was on that side.

An invitation, a peace offering. Or simply a visible sign of what Heero wanted, when words didn't work anymore.

The blue eyes were almost hidden by the fall of thick bangs. Wufei didn't need to see them to know they were fixed on him, scrutinizing his every move, dissecting any trace of hesitation. Heero's whole stance was watchful, waiting for his decision. Tension similar to Wufei's tightened the muscles in arms and shoulders.

Wufei glanced around a bit helplessly. He noticed that the sweats he usually wore to bed had been removed from their drawer and were folded on the dresser.

Right. Maybe that was the answer. Go to - he glanced once more, incredulously, at the construction on the floor - go to bed and sleep, and tomorrow-

He doubted things would be that simple. Sleep would probably have to wait until there were a few more explanations on both sides. But this was a start.

He felt numb as he reached for the sweats, one hand plucking at his jacket. The drop of tension behind him was like a gasp of relief.

_You're_ relieved?! You nearly gave me a heart attack, you bastard! The words thundered through Wufei's mind as his eyes stayed fastened, almost helplessly, on the dresser that had been removed from his room. But the words stayed in his head and did not break the almost religious silence around them. They were words of anger and uncertainty, a defense, a barrier; they did not belong here.

He undressed, embarrassed at the simple gesture as it was placed under the scrutiny of Heero's eyes. He kept his tee-shirt, slipped on the sweats, put his clothes, neatly folded, on the dresser, and moved awkwardly towards the, ah, bed.

Heero was on the side against the wall, leaving Wufei to sleep on the outside, nearest the door. Wufei knelt, shoving the cover further back, and slipped beneath it.

He immediately realized what the bed thing was about - he'd been wondering, in that part of his stunned mind that could still deal with speculation. This was...his bed, his territory. His nerves, his self, ripped raw by the past day, unwound a bit at finding himself in this familiar setting. Heero was with him, but not pressingly so; he was in his own camp, his own side. Close, but not so close as to invade a private space that was rather twitchy right now.

Plus, on the offhand chance they'd be able to sleep, this insured that they both had enough space to do so without getting close enough for it to be hazardous. They still had enough dangerous reflexes between the two of them to create more than a few nasty accidents.

Wufei sat lotus-style and pulled the cover over his folded legs, but he didn't lie back against the pillow. It would be wise to try to rest, to sleep, and deal with this tomorrow. One fundamental question had been asked and answered. The finer details should probably wait until they were both not so exhausted. He glanced towards the reading light, hesitating, then his eyes were drawn helplessly to peek at Heero's profile. Heero did not look like someone who was willing to wait to have the finer details sorted out.

Which left the awkward question of how to break the silence.

"I'm sorry." The words made Wufei start slightly. They should, by all rights, have been his. "I should have told you right away that I'd overheard what you'd said to Winner."

Wufei was silent. He hated to leave Heero out on his own like this, but he hadn't a clue what to say. He - both of them - were men of action. They didn't have the vocabulary for what really needed to be said here.

Heero continued on gamely though. "I thought I could fix it. Without having to actually..." Heero stared at the opposite wall, and then continued slowly, "I didn't think you wanted to tell me there was a problem, and I didn't want to hear it."

Yeah, that made sense. A little kernel of pain and anger he'd been unaware of made its presence felt as it slowly disappeared. He wondered if Heero was as afraid of change as he was. Maybe Heero had been striving for 'back to normal' as well, with a patched-together field dressing stuck over the festering 'Wufei' problem. Ignore it and it will go away. Sound familiar, Chang?

"I went on that mission without you - and we had sex when I got back, but I don't think you're my-" the word strangled in Heero's throat and he looked like he'd bitten into something rotten.

"I know. I was angry." Suddenly it wasn't so daunting to talk. Words were just words. If they used the ones they knew, they could still say what needed to be said. Wufei knew that the way he'd suddenly gripped the cover over his legs would tell Heero all he wanted to know. I was angry, yes, and I was hurt. I lashed out. I'm sorry.

Well, no, that last deserved to be said out loud. Wufei drew a breath, but Heero had moved on.

"I went on that mission with Armand because I didn't think you were ready."

Wufei stiffened.

"You were still off balance. I felt it. It seemed the more I tried to fix things, the worse it got." No shit, Wufei thought. "I thought if I just left you to rest, alone, without- without trying-..." Heero looked abruptly away.

He was afraid of making it even worse, Wufei realized. It was simpler not to confront it at all. Besides, Heero was probably comfortable thinking about Wufei's problems as some sort of injury. Rest always makes those better. Being left alone, useless, to stew in his own conflicting emotions for five days had nearly broken Wufei all over again, but he thought he understood Heero's straightforward reasoning now. When you were conversant with Heero's way of thinking, it made a sort of sense.

His attention was brought back to Heero as the latter crossed his arms over his chest in a gesture of tension and anger. "If you'd told me there was a problem, this wouldn't have happened."

Okay, my turn, Wufei thought, and took a deep breath.

"Yes. I'm...sorry." Man, that burned. He batted down the immediate anger that blossomed as a reflex reaction. "But I..." Shit, he had no idea how to continue this conversation. He could debate with philosophers until the sun set, but this...

"I didn't want to have a problem, like you said," he finally pursued slowly. "I wanted to resolve this on my own. I mean, I was working to overcome it." If that had ever been possible. "I wasn't going to tell anybody because it would soon no longer be-"

"You told Winner!"

That had come out quick, raw and loud. Heero shifted, glaring at his legs beneath the blanket, looking uneasy at his own outburst.

Wufei felt a flash of cold annoyance, a reaction to an attack.

"I wasn't in my right mind. I-" I had been broken. He couldn't say it. He was ashamed of it and the words stuck in his throat. "I would have told a potted plant if it had asked me nicely enough," he growled.

"Would you have told me?" Heero ignored the warning of the cold sarcasm and put his finger right on the wound.

No.

"Can you tell me now?" Heero whispered.

No.

Because I want you to be the last person on Earth and in Space to know how broken I was.

Goddamn it, Chang! Get a grip! Wufei rubbed his face and gritted his teeth. When he spoke his voice was cold, clear, the distance recovered. "We have some similarities in the way we were raised. I was taught that a warrior stands alone, can only depend on himself. My life was all mapped out. Honor, pride, duty. An arranged marriage. I was brought up to never require anything else. But..." An amalgam of memories and pain made him hesitate. "But during the war...I met people, I had to learn from them, depend on them. And there were so many sides and none of them were entirely wrong. I saw so much that didn't fit into the rigid lines of what I was raised for. The war...damaged me."

He struggled. It wasn't that he was trying to find the words to explain this to Heero. He was trying to figure it out himself. He'd spent so long running away from the canker in his soul that he could no longer trace its boundaries.

Heero was silent and motionless beside him. Wufei glanced at him reluctantly, but there was no impatience or expectation there. No threat to drag out what he wasn't yet ready to admit to. For once, Heero waited with the patience of a rock.

"I think I know now what you were trying to do these past weeks. But I don't need your protection, or your concern. I don't need your...I don't need you to fix me. I need..." Wufei took a deep breath. "I want someone who will spar with me, be my equal, my foil. Make me a better warrior. I never want that to change. But I'm not perfect."

"I'm not perfect," the grumble was automatic. "And why did you think I wanted you to be-"

He stopped talking at Wufei's curt gesture.

"Heero..." the distance had crumbled, despite his efforts to maintain it. "Before you ask that kind of question...what would you have done if we'd have had this conversation during the war?"

Silence.

Then, quietly: "I would have left. We had our cause, and we were about to die; we could not have afforded this kind of- of messy distraction during the war. But that was during the war!" the addition was quick and forceful. "We do not have the same constraints now."

...'We don't have the same constraints'. Heero, get a vocabulary. You mean we've changed. But have we?

"Don't we still have those constraints?" Wufei felt numb. "We still have missions, we still need to fight for peace. We still do a job only a few others can do, that needs all our strength and focus. I...lost everything during the war, it warped and destroyed a lot of my beliefs. Some days, the fact that I'm still needed, that I can challenge myself as a warrior and push myself to the very edge of my abilities for a cause I believe in, is the only thing that's keeping me going."

The waves of confusion from Heero were almost palpable. "I don't understand. You're saying you don't want-"

"I don't want to lose that. I can't lose that. I just don't know if it's enough any more. Between what I need in order to survive...and what I want, what makes me want to- to have a future, to-..."

Wufei's voice was unsteady, despite all his efforts. This was the heart of the wild storm that had been slowly tearing him apart since the war had stopped and he'd laid his revenge to rest.

He watched surreptitiously as Heero's face relaxed and eyes turned inward. Wufei could imagine Heero mentally poking this statement from all angles. Would he be able to recognize himself in those words? Did Heero have the same dichotomy, two people inside, one who merely needed a cause and a partner, and the other who wanted...more?

"What do you want, Heero?" Wufei asked softly.

Heero didn't react, he was staring blankly at nothing, slumped like a puppet with the strings abruptly cut.

"You see...if this-" Wufei gestured at the conjoined beds. "If our partnership, if us, it's not a lie...then it can't be one-sided. I don't want you to be my fucking martyr, Yuy. I certainly refuse to be yours. I can't be just another part of your mission. My feelings can't be used like that. And I'm not-..." Dragging this out into the open felt like wrenching the bones from his body. Wufei reached for his center. This had to be said. Only once, if his ancestors had any mercy on him. The two ex-soldiers should never have to go through this soul-searing conversation ever again, because either this was the end of their arrangement, or else their understanding would be reestablished and their silent, instinctive feel for each other would return. But for that to have a chance of happening...time to walk through the fire, Chang.

Time to take that leap of faith into darkness.

"I can't be as strong, cold and detached as you need me to be, all the time." Strange, after all the denial, the hiding, the pain, the words had come out so simple and straightforward. He thought he felt Heero twitch, but Wufei was staring at his hands in his lap and didn't look up. "And when I falter, I want someone at my side who will not scorn me for it, who can be my strength when I am weak; not because I'm needed for a mission, or out of obligation, but because he wants to be with me. Someone who might like the same comfort from me some day-"

Heero stood abruptly, shoving the covers back, strode towards the center of the room. His back was rigid with tension and anger.

Wufei waited, not adding anything more. He'd probably said more than enough, he thought, his heart sinking with resignation as he watched Heero shake his head savagely. He'd dropped all his defenses and Heero could now hurt him as he'd not been hurt in a long time. But after the weeks - months - of slow suffocation, he was almost looking forward to the pain; might as well get it over with, and then he could move on.

"Weak?! When are you weak?!"

Heero hadn't turned around. He was squeezing his arms across his chest, his shoulder blades leaping into sharp definition through the pads of muscles across his back as he curled up around himself. He looked as if he'd taken a shot to the stomach. Wufei stared at him, stunned, not even sure if that had been a question or just-

"Do you know..." Heero made a visible effort to control his voice. "Do you know what I felt? When I heard you tell that stuff to Winner? That you were tired? That you didn't think you could keep up with me any more?"

Confusion? Pain? Pity? Annoyance?...Disgust? Wufei's mind provided the alternatives with a wince, but his voice was completely lost.

Heero didn't need an answer. "I was relieved," he said, jaw working painfully as if the words were being dragged from him with meat-hooks.

"It's why I didn't come forward," he added, as if Wufei had said one of the thousands of splintered thoughts going through his dazed mind. "I wanted to hear what you were saying. I had to hear it. I knew it wasn't the drugs. I-...I saw this coming for awhile now. I just didn't know what it was until you said it."

Why relieved...?

"I'm a weapon." Heero's voice was its usual monotone again, just like that. Wufei wondered, dazed, at the kind of control it took to detach yourself so completely from such powerful emotions. For the first time, he found himself thinking it might not be entirely the admirable quality he'd always believed it to be.

"I was built like this." Heero's words were curt and matter-of-fact. "I do not regret it. If I could do it over again, I would only change my mistakes. It was necessary for me to be like this. It started with Odin, and J reinforced it. You were wrong, I wasn't taught to deny anything. I never had any wants in the first place. A weapon doesn't need them. I did what I had to. I had no satisfaction in doing it. No pride. No honor. No fear, either. I can't say I was perfect. A gun isn't perfect. It just is.

"But I was needed." Heero's voice dropped and softened slightly. "Because other people were not weapons. And their dreams could change the world in a way a weapon never could. I was needed to defend that. I couldn't fully believe in Relena's hopes for the future. But I could kill for her and die for her and do what was needed to make her life and my death meaningful."

The tension was suddenly back. With a vengeance.

"I had to become the best weapon I could be for that. Stronger, harder, better. Do the job that justified the fact that I hadn't been destroyed along with the Gundams, the job only a weapon could do.

"And every time I turned around...you were right behind me!"

Wufei pressed back against the wall as if Heero had shoved him, fight/flight reflexes surging through his body. The look of desperate fury in Heero's stance was something no one had ever seen before.

"You told me what you lost, but you still have so much! You are not a weapon! You read! You- you enter worlds someone like me cannot comprehend! You can talk with people, understand the way they think and feel, not just preempt the way they fight! You-...you think, you act, you live for yourself, in yourself, you - you're confused and torn but you still follow me step by step - you're still as strong as I am!

"When you came back last year from university, I was useless. I couldn't adapt to this new world. They still need weapons, but they have to be so careful with them now. You were my guard, the one who would make sure I didn't turn on what had been built. And you were just as good as I am, you became my- my right hand! I couldn't function without you any more. But you were not a weapon! It-"

Suddenly the cold fury guttered out. What was left was a man that Wufei realized he might have never met before. Heero's voice was so low, it sounded defeated.

"We worked together, and we did great things, but living with you, watching you...that's what damaged me. It showed me something that I shouldn't have seen. I...the only thing I should ever want is to live and die for my mission, but I realized, at some point, that I had started to want something else. It's hard to define...I think I wanted to be more like you."

Wufei, shocked into helpless silence, felt the world spin like a penny and tip on its edge, tumbling to land on a side he'd never seen before, never even imagined.

"I was starting to feel things. That were not mission related, I mean. It would creep up on me, like those feelings I had during the war, when I suddenly found I couldn't kill Relena even though all my training said I should. But these feelings weren't that- that meaningful. It was just...curiosity, when we were on L3. What it would be like to pretend to be normal, to be more like you. Or when you were injured and said you wanted to go home...I didn't even react for a few seconds, it just seemed so natural for you to say that. It was your home - our home. But a weapon doesn't have a home. I thought you just meant this place, because we'd lived here for awhile, but that reasoning didn't feel right."

Wufei blinked at the far wall, as if it contained a vid screen where he could rewind his life and pay a bit more attention this time around. When had he said that?

"I should not have indulged in those urges, of course," Heero grumbled, half-turned away and glaring at nothing again. "It goes counter to most of my training. But Odin had told me...he said that if you follow your feelings, then at least you will be making your own mistakes for your own reasons. And these feelings seemed pretty harmless.

"But then you talked to Quatre, trusted him more than me...and that hurt. It shouldn't have. As for what you said, it was exactly what I'd feared might happen during the war, before I really got to know you, before I realized you were just as dedicated to your cause as I was to mine. When I heard what you said-...back during the war, I would have felt contempt, I would have severed our connection. Instead, I was relieved, because I had begun to doubt myself, my training. Your words were proof that my upbringing, my life, were justified; I had to be nothing more than a weapon to do the job I had to do. You appeared to be weaker than me simply for being more human.

"But the relief died almost immediately. You're...not weak. I've had too much proof of that." Wufei felt a moment of bewilderment for the brutal honesty that characterized Heero Yuy since he'd known him. The temptation to deny that must have been so strong. Wufei knew, with sick certainty, what conclusions he'd have drawn if the positions had been reversed. Heero didn't even sound resentful as he continued, speaking so softly now.

"What you were saying should have had nothing to do with me, it shouldn't have affected me. But it did; I just felt sick that I had hurt you that much. That I had brought someone so strong to break down. Whatever it justified, whatever it proved, it just felt wrong. I thought I could fix it. I...had to fix it.

"But I understand what you meant before you left, when you said that what I wanted was also important. You don't want to live with a weapon. And maybe you were right; maybe I only want to put you back together again because I need you for my mission. Just because I follow my feelings doesn't mean that I fully understand them. I've never had to quantify them before, explain them to someone else before. The only thing I've ever had to do is judge if they would interfere with my duty, and choose to follow them or not.

"I do need you for my mission. That's obvious. And I guess I can understand why that's not enough anymore. The very thing I need you for is driving you away. I'm sure those dead philosophers you read about would find that very amusing." Heero was scowling at the books on the dresser and Wufei could imagine a few ancient sages cringing beyond the grave.

"Yes...they do enjoy pointing out the little ironies of life..." Wufei's head was spinning. 'I wanted to be more like you'.

He rubbed an eye with the palm of his hand. The yellow bedside light was too mellow for the raw, red wounded words that had been laid bare here tonight. The tiger within Wufei was appalled at the revelations, his own and Yuy's. He'd made Heero doubt himself, doubt the strength that Wufei had always admired. His weakness had spread like an infection! But...the war was over. Neither of them had to be that strong any more. Right? Not if they could lean against each other. If...that was possible. But was it?

Wufei realized he was gripping the cover hard enough to rip the seams of the sleeping bags. He frowned at it, suddenly puzzled, and unclenched his fingers.

"Heero...what is this?" Wufei waved at the bed.

Heero glanced back, suddenly hesitant, unsure, and massively defensive as a result. "I liked it," he muttered.

"Er...what did you-"

"When you went to sleep. With me. After we had sex yesterday." Heero's words were brittle and clipped. "You trusted me. I watched you relax. You're always tense, even around me. Always ready to fight. Me or anyone. But you trusted me enough to sleep, even though I was close enough to harm you. A part of you trusted me to watch out for you. I don't mean, watching each other's backs, like we've been doing for a year. To sleep like that...it felt like you were trusting me with something more. I never felt closer to you." His lips tightened. Probably remembering how that particular episode had ended. But that had been because of the nightmare, because of everything that followed. Wufei remembered a gentle hand cleaning him, resting lightly on his hip, and the warmth of Heero's skin along his back. He'd rarely slept better. He'd felt safe, in a fundamental way that went far beyond security concerns.

"You asked me what I wanted. I don't-...I'm not able to..." Heero rolled his eyes, visibly annoyed by his own inability to put what he was feeling into words. "I wanted that. You asked." The words were harsh, thrown like a gauntlet. That was maybe all he had. But he was giving it to Wufei.

Wufei was silent. So many preconceptions - partly born from his own voluntary blindness and fears - shattered. But this was still Heero. There was still a lot of the young man - the weapon - that Wufei had known during the war.

"Well?"

He glanced at up at his partner, who was looking as defensive yet as vulnerable as he'd ever seen him, standing with his arms crossed but his head lowered, braced for a blow.

"What do you want?" Heero asked. He was staring at the bed, as if thinking it was a pitiful offering.

And it was, on the surface of it. The step he'd taken was small, and, more importantly, it was perhaps all he was capable of, and there would be nothing else forthcoming. But it was the tiny flick that tipped a penny on its edge to fall on one side instead of the other. To Wufei, who hadn't wanted all that much to begin with, it changed everything.

"I want..." Wufei felt like a hollow bamboo and suddenly very, very tired. "I want us to stop talking now."

Heero blinked, visibly confused and hurt. Then he focused on the hand Wufei held out to him. He moved forward tentatively, not sure of what was required of him.

Wufei grabbed the hand reaching hesitantly out in response. A flicker of melancholy memory; of the many times he'd refused similar gestures from Heero. The time Heero had stretched out his hand to help Wufei up from the floor, after their very first fight, their very first - hell, it could hardly be called sex. So many times Heero had offered him a hand up that he'd always refused. Wufei had wanted to stand by himself.

He tugged gently, and Heero finally lay on his side, and Wufei slipped his arms around him.

There was a moment of fumbling. Heero just lay there, stiff and uncertain, and Wufei wasn't familiar with this either. But it wasn't nearly as hard to figure out as he'd thought. Wufei laid his head in the crook of Heero's shoulder, and after a few seconds he felt strong arms circle him. Wufei crushed the rebellious warrior within who was still trying to despise this. It went against both their trainings, but they'd conquered two armies and all the odds, they could surely conquer this too. He needed this, and Heero wanted to give it to him. Or was that the other way around; the 'need' and the 'want'...? It probably didn't matter. They bled into each other and swirled in his mind like yin and yang, perpetually chasing each other yet always in balance.

Heero held him very lightly to start with, and then gradually increased the pressure until it matched the strength with which Wufei was holding him. His skin felt abnormally warm beneath Wufei's cheek, the scent of flesh and soap was soothing. The hand on Wufei's back began brushing back and forth, lightly to start with. Then it grew bolder as Wufei found himself relaxing. He was being petted like a puppy; he should mind, Wufei thought drowsily. Somehow he couldn't muster up the energy to do anything but enjoy the sensation.

Had Heero's forgotten mother, assuming he had one, done this for him? Or was the age-old gesture of comfort hotwired into the human psyche?

It felt good. Too good.

"What is it?" Heero's whisper was tentative, almost nervous, against Wufei's skin. "You're tensing up again." It sounded like he thought he wasn't doing it right. This had probably not been in his training manual.

Wufei shook his head minutely, knowing Heero would catch the movement against his shoulder. "It...just reminds me of a nightmare I had."

The hand stilled and the arms jerked away a fraction.

"Not a bad nightmare," Wufei mumbled, wanting to recapture that momentary warmth despite his growing tension. "Just a dream. We...we would be like this."

"And?" Heero's voice was tense in expectation of some horrible revelation.

"And then I'd wake up. The drug...it was making me face what I wanted. And couldn't have."

Heero relaxed in sudden comprehension. "And now you're not sure if you're awake or dreaming."

"Hm. I could never tell until I woke up."

There was a moment of silence. Wufei began to relax again. Susan Wu no longer had her little chemical fingers in his head, he could tell the difference between dream and reality now, and this was too complex, fragile and messy to be anything but real; from the cringing thought of all they still had to work through, tomorrow and eventually, to the small detail of the way his arm beneath his body was going to sleep, or the fact that the skin of his back that Heero had been rubbing was now itching a bit and he wanted to scratch it.

"If you are dreaming...and you wake up." Heero's whisper ruffled his hair, making him feel prickly. "If you wake up and we're both in our separate beds...don't just lock it all away again. March into my room, kick me out of bed, shout at me until we straighten it out, and then we can set the mattresses up like this again and we'll be set." Heero sounded very reasonable.

"At which point of that explanation do you think you're likely to shoot me?"

Heero made a sound in his throat. "Probably when you drag me out of bed to give me that confusing lecture about want and need."

"That's what I thought."

"But if I listen, and it makes sense, then I'll agree," Heero declared firmly. Ahh, the joys of thinking in beautifully straight lines, Wufei thought dryly, his eyes drifting shut.

But he couldn't help asking: "And if you still don't-"

"Then you won't be leaving behind anything important," Heero whispered almost inaudibly.

They stayed like that for ten minutes or so. More like brothers frightened by the night than lovers. The darkness of the room around the globe of yellow light became washed with gray. It was five o'clock in the morning. The time when Wufei usually woke from a nightmare.

But since this wasn't a nightmare, and they both had to sleep, they finally separated by silent, mutual agreement; Heero rubbing his arms with obvious pins and needles from the pressure of Wufei's head. Wufei scrunched to one side, almost ready to topple off the mattress, leaving Heero as much room as possible. He still wasn't sure his trigger-happy partner would be able to sleep so close to someone. He himself would have no problems, he thought, blinking sleepily.

Wufei settled back against the pillow. He knew blue eyes were watching him - warily? Curiously? Searchingly? He didn't want to look. He had to sleep, and he didn't feel like starting a staring contest. Or having that awkward flinch away of eyes meeting when neither was sure-

That awkwardness and uncertainty might be around for awhile, he reminded himself dryly. It appeared that he and Heero were embarking on a bona fide relationship. Wufei was a prickly, arrogant and occasionally insecure warrior who had a hard time expressing his desires because he'd been taught to despise them from the earliest age. And Heero was a damaged soldier who was willing to try to meet Wufei's desires, but unfamiliarity with relationships meant he needed them clearly delineated and defined, and fear of failure was making him hesitant, almost aggressive, and prone to retreating into silence or worse, mission mentality.

Logic says we're fucked before we even begin, Wufei thought a bit testily.

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time they'd given logic, the odds and even fate a run for its money.

They had to hold on to what they already had, the bit that Wufei had been afraid of losing all along: the strength, power and the battle-field understanding that defined them. It would help them build more. Their original arrangement had already evolved, all by itself and almost against their will, far beyond the strict limitations they'd tried to impose on it at first, like a very unruly bonsai. They had to acknowledge that, help it grow towards something that met both needs and wants and let them both mature, structured yet also free- Yeah, okay, so they were probably fucked.

Their arrangement - their lives - would never be perfect.

As he fell asleep, Wufei wondered if that was really such a bad thing after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END   
> of the main Wufei POV narrative, that is. There is an intermission chapter and an epilogue in Heero's POV to follow.   
> And in addition, there will be a brand new chapter after the epilogue, a bonus chapter in celebration for getting this monster out on AO3 and in thanks for all the readers who have been so kind to comment. A fairly light addition (no guns, no violence, no mating tigers, WTF?) but it'll show how things have progressed a few months down the road.


	40. Intermission

"Shame when you ask is less than when you didn't."  
\--- Japanese Proverb

 

 

"No!" Wufei growled.

Heero watched. His eyes traced features that were as familiar as his own. More so; Heero rarely looked in a mirror.

"...I won't..." Or had Wufei said, 'I want'? It wasn't clear.

Muttered words into the pillow. Mandarin, Heero thought, automatically trying to read the dry, chapped lips. He thought he caught a name. Meiran. He could have been mistaken.

Wufei was lying on his side. He'd been on his back before, sleeping peacefully. To be more accurate, sleeping like someone so close to the edge of exhaustion that it was technically unconsciousness. Now he was curled up and jerking a bit against the sheets, fighting something. Always fighting. He was scowling, the force of the expression watered down by sleep. His eyes were screwed shut. The skin beneath them looked bruised, a darker copper tone that contrasted with the unhealthy pallor of his usually golden skin. His lashes looked longer and darker against his cheeks. The curve of his nose was buried into the pillow. His mouth was slightly open, barely touching the words that fell among the folds of the sheet his fists had scrunched up near his chin. His hair was loose. That and the exhaustion made him look different. Heero could count on his fingers the number of times he'd seen Chang with his hair down. Particularly in bed. It fell over his face, cutting it into chunks, making the skin even paler by comparison. Heero had been fighting the urge to go and gather it back, maybe even tie it. He knew Wufei hated to have his hair down.

Heero had tried several times to work that morning. His eyes kept getting dragged back to his partner's face. When the nightmare had started, he'd shut his laptop and given up any hope of actually getting anything done. Now he watched.

Should he wake Wufei up? He'd questioned Sally at length about the drug Susan Wu had used on his partner, and he had spent most of the time since doing research. At this point, rest was the most important factor in recovery, to get over the effects of complete exhaustion and mental stress. Sally had said to let him sleep and wake him only in cases of actual physical distress, sleep walking or hallucinations.

How the hell did one tell if a sleeping man was hallucinating?!

After all, Heero hadn't figured out that Wufei had been hallucinating repeatedly for weeks.

The bitterness of that thought caught him by surprise. He put it aside. And realized he was tracing Wufei's features with his eyes once more.

How often had he actually seen his partner sleep?

The question took him a bit off guard. What could it possibly matter?!

But his mind had started an automatic tally. Not often. On a mission, one slept while the other kept watch outside. In the rare cases they were resting together in the same room, they slept lightly, and they came awake at the same time. It wasn't planned, it just happened. They slept and woke and worked and fought like parts of the same body.

The only time they slept deeply was here in the safe-house. Separately.

"I'm not!"

The hoarse cry startled him. The features that Heero had been scrutinizing - again! - came together abruptly into a whole, into Wufei's face, no longer an alien collection of nose, eyes, cheeks and hair but his partner, his friend. Heero tensed. Should he wake him? Wufei desperately needed the rest, but if this was another hallucination then-

"...m'not..." This time it was much softer, a mumble into cloth.

Heero relaxed a fraction. Wufei's face softened, his eyes no longer tightly screwed shut. He sighed into the pillow and went still. Hopefully deeper into sleep.

He needed sleep. Then he'd be all right again. He'd be Chang again: reliable, in his rather unique way. A blend of cold sarcasm and burning intensity. Heero had missed that this past month, though he'd had much more to worry about at the time. Wufei's physical and mental deterioration hadn't only been hard to understand, it had been difficult to witness.

The self-directed anger weighed in his gut like a chunk of ice. Heero blamed himself entirely for the whole episode. Chang, of course, had not been in a position to realize what was happening; the drug had affected his judgment. Heero had been on the outside, an impartial observer. How had he managed to ignore the significance of the drastic changes in his partner? And the way it all started at the same time as that fucking WWC case?!

He'd let his partner be systematically poisoned for over a month. He should have realized.

His eyes were tracing Wufei's features again. The sharp curves of the cheekbones, the dip of the throat, the way the shoulders hunched protectively even in sleep.

A lock of hair slipped further down Wufei's face, landed lightly on the pillow.

He could just wake Chang up briefly and help him with that. He'd probably go right back to sleep. Where did he keep his hair ties?

Speculation about where Wufei kept hair accessories was futile. Even if Heero had one on hand, he would not approach his partner. There was a no-man's-land around the bed that Heero did not feel he had the right to cross.

Heero shifted in the chair - had to remember to put it back in the study after Chang woke up. Wufei hated to have his room cluttered. The Glock in its back holster dug into Heero's kidneys. It was uncomfortable. He'd thought several times of putting it away. But in the end, a sort of instinct made him keep it. He assumed at first that it was because he was in charge of a potentially deadly killer, one of the rare people who could rival Heero in fighting abilities. Wufei was under drugs, he had suffered severe hallucinations, and he had held Heero at gunpoint less than two days ago.

All those made for very good reasons, but Heero had realized, after a rare moment of self-examination, that the main reason he was wearing his gun at all times was because his partner was no longer able to watch his back. Wufei was helpless in his present state. Injured, incapacitated. Man down. Fall back, find a safe position, defend. Heero wasn't sure he liked the feeling. It wasn't very rational. The chances of being attacked were small. Not many people knew this address. Besides, Winner was working downstairs, and Heero had given him the new access code to the guns locker. But Heero had slowly learned to trust his feelings more and more since the start of the war. The press of metal at his back was comforting. If anybody decided to start a war with him now, they would find that their timing was very, very off.

Footsteps approaching. Familiar. Heero took his hand from the Glock where it had wound up automatically. After a gentle knock and a prudent pause of five seconds, the door opened. Quatre walked in, eyes on the bed, then he glanced at Heero.

"He should probably eat something," he whispered softly.

Quatre walked over to check on their charge. Heero felt a moment of shocked disbelief that Quatre could just - go over there- violate Wufei's private space, waltz right into the no-man's-land as if it wasn't there. His hands were gripping his knees, and Heero glared at them. They relaxed slowly.

"He looks okay," Quatre whispered, standing over Wufei, a hand actually resting on his shoulder. Heero shifted. The Glock dug further into his back.

"He's still sweating a bit...Heero, why don't you go make something to eat? And mix him some fluids; sugar, bit of salt, you know the drill. Unless you have some sports drink? Heero?"

Heero found his voice, that is, the one that wasn't telling Quatre to mind his own business and that Heero could take care of his partner by himself. That was irrational. As well as untrue, as the last few days had shown, Heero reminded himself bitterly.

"Sally said to go easy with sodium." He spoke reluctantly and very softly. Wufei needed his rest.

"Yes, but he's still dehydrated, and he's lost electrolytes and minerals. Just put a bit of salt. Or water down the sport's drink if you have any. None of that proteinated stuff, though."

"I know," Heero snapped in a low voice, heading towards the door.

He could feel Quatre's eyes on his back until he closed the door behind him gently. By unspoken agreement they concentrated on taking care of their charge and avoided each other, but there was a tension between them that Heero wasn't sure he understood. Quatre was being civil, but apparently he was still angry at Heero for eavesdropping the other day for some reason he seemed to think was obvious. And Heero's irritability had no discernible cause whatsoever and was probably the result of stress, fatigue, and the fact that he'd had to arrest Susan Wu formally instead of shipping her safely off to the Mars penal colony for preventive detention, which would have been his first choice in how to deal with her.

Heero stirred the bowl's contents quickly, an ear out for disturbances upstairs. He'd heard a flush, and the shower run briefly. He hoped Winner wouldn't be stupid enough to leave Wufei alone in the bathroom. Maybe he should go check-

Steps in the stairwell stopped him. He hesitated, put the bowl and bottle down on the counter, went quickly to get a spoon and then leaned against the edge of the sink, out of the way.

Wufei was holding on to the stair's ramp tightly as he came down the last few steps. Quatre was on his other side, hand extended in case Wufei stumbled. Heero gave his partner a quick visual once-over, as if Wufei were stepping down, battered and bruised, from his Gundam's cockpit. Tired, eyes unfocused, face lax, shoulders slumped. His hair was no longer loose though. Quatre must have found a hair-tie. Quatre had gotten him out of his sweat-soaked clothes and into a pair of loose cotton pants and a clean tee. Heero hoped Wufei wouldn't mind the liberty. Winner was a friend of his, so he probably wouldn't.

"Here, sit down. Have something to drink." Quatre maneuvered Wufei onto the stool and placed the bottle of watered down sports drink in his hands. Heero noted the slight tremble as Wufei lifted it to his lips automatically. He drank for awhile, put the bottle down, then stared blankly at the counter before him.

After waiting for a bit, Quatre slipped the spoon between Wufei's fingers and dipped it in the bowl, frowning anxiously.

"Come on, Wufei. You've got to eat something. You'll feel better afterwards," Quatre pressed him in a soft voice.

Slowly Wufei began to eat. He looked distracted, his gaze still fixed on the kitchen counter. He was propping himself up on one arm in a slouch that was unusual for him.

"Are you still feeling tired?" Quatre asked, completely unnecessarily in Heero's opinion.

Wufei nodded after five seconds. Then his gaze dropped to the bowl. The slow, automatic back and forth of the spoon stopped.

"What is this?" His voice was a thread-bare murmur.

"Soup, I think," Quatre answered, glancing at Heero.

"...did Heero make this...?"

Heero felt a faint ripple along his spine. 'Heero', not 'Yuy'. What did that mean? Nothing, it meant Chang was exhausted, that was all.

"Yes." Quatre hadn't noticed the slip. He was listening and talking to Wufei in hushed tones, like he was receiving the dying words of his best friend or something.

"...tastes like boiled socks and seaweed," Wufei said solemnly, after a few seconds of apparently intense reflection. Heero felt a bit reassured. If Chang was back to making snarky comments about his cooking, then he had to be getting better.

"Oh. Maybe you'd prefer-" Quatre interrupted himself. Wufei was eating again slowly and methodically, as if nothing had been said, his eyes glued once more to the counter.

The bowl was three quarters finished when the spoon slipped from his fingers. Heero had been expecting it; he'd noticed Wufei's eyelids droop.

"You done? Want to go back to bed?" Quatre asked gently.

Wufei didn't say anything. One hand was still gripping the bowl. He was staring at it now, frowning slightly.

Quatre pulled a bit at his arm, but Wufei didn't move. Heero hesitated, and then he walked forward slowly under the irritated blue gaze that was prodding him to help, to do something. He grabbed the bowl and tugged, ready to order his partner to go rest and recover.

The bowl didn't move. Wufei had it in an iron grip that quite belied his weakened appearance.

As Heero tugged again, a bit at a loss, black eyes fastened on his hand, slowly climbed his arm, latched on to his face. Heero felt his mouth go inexplicably dry.

"I know it wasn't very good," he muttered, taking himself completely by surprise since that hadn't been anywhere near the instructions to go to bed that he'd intended.

Wufei looked at him, eyes not quite entirely focused. Then he smiled.

Heero realized distantly that Wufei had let go of the bowl; its edge was digging into Heero's chest as he clutched it there. He couldn't look away from that small smile. It was...naked. It was...just there, without pretense, without its usual veneer of detachment and arrogance, it was just-

"Yeah, that tasted pretty bad," Wufei whispered. The smile was almost playful -not hard, nor taunting - it was as if they shared a joke, a moment that was just for them, it was - it was-

Heero found himself wrapping his arms around the bowl against his chest. "...didn't have time- just put some instant rice and fish stock in a bowl, nuked it- no salt, because Sally Po said-"

"I'll cook next time," Wufei declared kindly. The smile suddenly melted and his eyes completely lost their focus, turned inward. "What-...what-...time is it...?"

"Nearly noon." Quatre's brisk tone reminded Heero that the other man was listening, was actually seeing his partner like this- Heero clutched the bowl tighter and fought down a slight, irrational surge of resentment.

"Come on, Wufei. Let's get you back to bed." Quatre tugged Wufei's arm gently.

Wufei stood up slowly, blindly. His eyes stayed fixed straight in front of him. He appeared to forget Heero was there.

Heero turned towards the sink on automatic. Chang was tired. Just tired. Not his normal self yet. That was all. He just needed more rest. His body had been put under strain. All of this - everything - everything he'd said or done since Susan Wu had slipped him that high dosage in his tea - all the product of delirium, drugs and fatigue, Heero knew that.

"Wufei...? Wufei, come on," Quatre whispered in the background while Heero made once more a list of all the drug's effects, side-effects, possible complications, resulting injuries and estimated length of time necessary for recovery before being A-OK and ready for field duty. Water splashed in the bowl. He reached for the dish soap without looking.

"Wufei...? Heero?"

Heero tensed and turned. Water and soap splashed out of the bowl and wet his sleeve.

Wufei was clinging to the edge of the counter, resisting Quatre's growing efforts to lead him back to the stairs. His eyes were focused on his surroundings, but what else was going through his mind could only be guessed at; there was a look of distress, of growing panic on his face. The bowl thunked into the sink with a clank, water ran unheeded.

"Wufei?" Quatre's voice was louder, trying to get through. Wufei could obviously hear him; his eyes flickered briefly towards Quatre. But who knew what else he was seeing, what deathtrap the kitchen had become in his mind. Heero felt sure Wufei knew, on some level, that this was only an hallucination. There was a look of frustration and self-directed shame on his face that was as strong as the fear keeping him clinging to the counter.

"I-I'm sorry..." it was barely a whisper, "I know it's not-...I'm sorry..."

"Don't be. Come on, Wufei, we need to get you into bed," Quatre announced firmly. He tried to lead Wufei away, but the latter was still clinging to the counter as if his life depended on it, as if there were an abyss beneath his feet at all sides. The skin beneath Winner's fingers was getting white, with red edges due to pressure as he tried to peel Wufei away from the counter.

Wufei said nothing, but his lips were still moving. He looked lost, broken. I'm sorry...I'm sorry...

The faucet crunched and twisted beneath Heero's fingers, nearly snapping off.

Three steps brought him over by the counter. Quatre opened his mouth to say something but Heero had already loosened his hand on Wufei's arm - with only a bit of bruising of the thumb joint - and scooped his partner up into his arms. Chang hated to be carried, he'd rather crawl, that's what he'd said when his knee had been injured. But that was okay. It was better than okay. If he got mad at Heero, that was just fine. That was better than- there was nothing he should feel sorry for- this was-

Heero wrenched the covers away from the bed with one hand, the other steadying Wufei against his chest.

This was all his fault.

Wufei was already asleep by the time the cover settled over his shoulders. Heero realized he was scrutinizing Wufei's face again; the strong, tired features of a man he wasn't sure he knew anymore.

He'd been trying to forget what Chang had said. Obviously drug-influenced. 

\- But it wasn't. It was the darkness in Wufei's eyes that had been gathering these past months, finally given form.

If it hadn't been the drugs talking, then that showed a weakness in his partner that would surprise and shock Heero to the core.

\- But Wufei wasn't weak...and Heero wasn't surprised...and the momentary flash of sordid relief that his rival and partner wasn't as strong as he was had faded almost immediately to leave only a bleak, lost feeling that Heero had judged irrelevant and unfounded and shoved aside...

If Chang were foolish enough to develop some kind of emotional bond with Heero, then- then-

\- Wufei's words, which he'd been so assiduously trying to categorize as the products of drug-related delirium, were throbbing in his body like a chest wound, an echo of the obvious pain that had been wracking Wufei when he said-

Heero didn't know-

-...he didn't know-

This was all his fault, and _he didn't know what to do!_

Heero sprang up from his crouch near the bed and was at the door in five long strides. Quatre barely had time to blink before getting slammed against the far wall of the corridor outside. Mindful of his sleeping partner, Heero kept his voice low. That might have made it sound a bit more menacing than was intended.

"What's wrong with him? Why is he like that? What am I supposed to do?!"

Quatre stared at him. "Do about what?" He sounded remarkably calm, though he was hunched a bit defensively around the hands fisting the front of his jumper.

"About- about this! About what he said!"

"Oh. That." Quatre's voice took on an oddly flat quality. "You wait until he wakes up and recovers a bit, and then you tell him you listened in on him while he was saying things he obviously didn't want you to hear. I suggest apologizing at that point."

"That's not what I meant! What do I do to- how do I -" get my partner back. How do I make the pain go away. "How do I fix this?!"

Quatre blinked. Twice.

Heero resisted the urge to shake him until an answer dropped out. He had to know! This was wrong! Wufei shouldn't be hurting like this, not because of him. And behind Heero's concern and the odd ache in his gut, a part of him - a part he'd been taught to listen to - was insisting that he leave Winner to watch over Chang and move out of the house while he could, take solo missions from now on, or with people who couldn't become emotionally attached to him. Heero was just an expendable tool for - fuck, why, why had that happened?! No matter, it was a distraction and they couldn't afford it. Wufei couldn't afford it, Wufei couldn't afford to be hurting like that, and the only reason Heero wasn't leaving was because Chang was still the best partner he could ever have in his mission to protect the peace, and because Wufei had said that he'd only been half-alive before their partnership and Heero knew exactly what he meant.

Okay. That was actually two reasons.

Heero realized his grip had loosened on Quatre's jumper. The latter had his hands over Heero's wrists, but he wasn't breaking his aggressor's thumbs or applying a nerve pinch. He was staring at Heero as if he could read every thought that was going through his head, an annoying habit the blond had started developing in Sanq. The blue eyes managed to be both analytical and sympathetic.

"You really want to know how to fix this, Heero?"

"Yes." Please.

"Then do exactly what I said. Wait until he's a bit better, and tell him what you heard."

"How's that going to help?" Heero whispered numbly.

"It'll get things out in the open. It will force him to talk to you about this - once he's done shouting, of course. Then he'll help you figure out what he needs from you."

"Will he?" Heero bit his lip until he could taste blood. He'd not meant it to come out that bitterly. Quatre's look of sympathy was doing things to his self-control that were probably not very healthy for anyone concerned. It just...

Wufei hadn't told him before, so why should he tell Heero anything now? His partner had in fact gone to great lengths to hide this from him, from anyone.

Quatre was smart and he was emotionally well balanced. But he didn't know them, not that well; he'd barely seen them this past year, and they'd not fought together that often during the war. Winner had something like a normal life now. He knew nothing about the edge of danger and achievement that the partners pursued. Heero knew just how horrified Wufei would be at having let those words slip. Under the influence of a drug, Heero reminded himself. It had hardly been voluntary.

"...Heero?"

"I'll tell him. When he's better."

"Yes, of course I meant-"

"How do I make him better?"

Quatre looked confused. "What? What do you mean? Just let him rest, there's not much else you can do."

Heero already knew that. Rest. Chang was on full sick leave anyway. Heero was going to make damn sure he had all the rest he needed. "What else?"

"What else?" Quatre looked nonplussed. "Just be here for him, he might want to talk-"

Quatre interrupted himself and his eyes took on a suspicious glint. "Look, I'm not going to tell you how to cozen up to your own lov- partner. If what you heard made you realize that you guys might have a problem, then I'm almost glad you walked in on us. But sooner or later you two will have to communicate. Now, if you want my help, I'll play counselor. For both of you, mind you, not just-"

"We'll sort it out," Heero interrupted, letting go of Winner. "You're a proficient diplomat and negotiator, but that just wouldn't work."

Quatre rolled his eyes and muttered something about 'two of a kind', but he didn't look surprised or offended. "Do you want me to at least break it to him that you accidentally overheard-"

"No need, I will tell him myself when he's recovered." Heero turned back towards the room. He closed the door on Quatre's prudent relief and words of encouragement.

He would, too. He didn't want to tell Chang, knowing very well how explosively his partner would react. But keeping it from him felt strangely wrong. Heero wasn't sure why - it was a good thing he'd heard this, after all; now he knew for sure there was a problem, and he could see its cause, too. And telling Wufei would probably cause a good deal of anger and distress, while hiding it would hurt no-one. But still, he decided to go with his feelings on this one.

But before he caused any further harm, he was going to make Wufei better. Rest was indicated. Exhaustion was probably much to blame for Chang's present condition. Not just the Susan Wu incident; the fatigue accumulated from over a year of intense fighting following a war. Heero sometimes forgot that Wufei was only human (not that he'd ever put it that way to his partner, not being particularly suicidal anymore). That was probably the cause of this- this problem. Wufei had never shown any signs of this sort of complication during the war or at the start of their association. Wufei knew Heero down to the ground; he knew just what kind of killer he was living with. An emotional attachment showed that his judgment was impaired.

So, rest. What else? Heero would have to figure out what else Wufei needed. Chang was normally an extremely well balanced, self-contained and resilient man; what was missing in his environment that could cause him to lose that? Heero had been trying to avoid thinking about what he'd overheard, knowing Wufei would be embarrassed by it, but he now replayed every word, nuance and intonation in his mind as he sat down again. On the face of it, Chang hadn't said all that much. In fact, most of the conversation had been spent denying Winner's speculations. It had made it easy to discount it, after the initial shock-

_\- relief - confusion - pain -_

Heero concentrated, shoving his feelings away. They were not needed here; they would only get in the way of his mission. He didn't have the time for self-directed anger. He had to help his partner. Now, though Chang's words had been few, and mostly denials, Heero remembered every flinch, every defensive gesture. He thought he could guess what were the salient points of the problem.

That Wufei was tired, mentally as well as physically, was obvious - rest would fix that. Could he recover from such an ordeal in only a couple of weeks? Heero would judge his state by the end of his sick leave and see if more time off was required.

Wufei needed a friend to talk to; self-expression and communication were an essential part of most therapies. Heero side-stepped the surge of bitterness that he'd not been found adequate. In the more analytical part of himself, he knew why that was. The rivalry between them made Heero less than ideal as a confidante, obviously. Wufei would rather bite his tongue than concede a weakness to his partner. Who would Wufei feel comfortable talking to? Winner? The man knew the worst already, he was the ideal person...but he might try to interfere and spill what he knew. Heero composed a quick list of Wufei's friends for later analysis of other alternative solutions.

And for Wufei's sake, he'd have to tone down their rivalry somewhat. That would be a pity; he would miss their competitive sparring. But Wufei needed a break from that. And an assurance that he was keeping up with Heero, that he was as strong as ever. Positive reinforcement.

Heero leaned over, rested his elbow on his knee, chin in hand, and stared at the strong, tired features. Too bad Winner couldn't be counted on to help. The man apparently did not see the need to rebuild Wufei's self-esteem and inner balance before dropping a new bombshell on him. The partners would be better off without that kind of interference, well-meaning though it was. It was a pity because Winner's empathetic abilities would certainly come in handy from an observational standpoint. Wufei was exceptionally good at hiding these feelings, if the past few months were anything to go by. When he wasn't being drugged nearly to death, that is, and that was hardly a viable option. Heero hoped that now that he knew what the problem was, he would be able to read Wufei a bit better and evaluate the effectiveness of his treatment. Otherwise he'd be working blind.

The part of Heero's mind that had been constructed by Dr J was telling him this was a lot of effort, when he should be concentrating on his mission.

Heero weighed this carefully and then discarded it in favor of following his feelings on this. He was not going to give up a powerful ally, even over this unforeseen complication. He was not going to leave Wufei so off-balance and miserable. He was not going to break up their partnership.

He was going to fix this.

 

Mind made up - in reinforced concrete - it would be several weeks before Heero would have to question the root of that decision, instead of concentrating on the means of achieving it.


	41. Epilogue Part I

"Things are to be tried"  
\--- Japanese proverb

 

Heero came awake in one adrenaline-drenched second, muscles clenched and ready.

"It's me."

The words were quick and cautious, but Heero had already been relaxing. He'd set his mind like an alarm clock, to recall the essentials of what had happened - ‘you're sleeping in the same bed as Chang, wake up quickly without any sudden moves’. He thought it prudent to avoid any unpleasant incidents.

But he'd slept remarkably deeply, considering. Heero let a trickle of warmth flow through him, a sort of ‘mission successful’ buzz; then he wondered if that was appropriate. But if nothing else, it was a good training tool. He could teach himself to get used to this, and not wake up with a cardiac clench after a few weeks.

He could grow to like it, too. The thought poked its head up unexpectedly as he focused. Wufei was propped up on one elbow; he'd actually moved around in the bed and Heero had not woken up, the latter realized with another small rush of pride/success. This sleeping together thing might work out after all.

Wufei's dark skin contrasted with the sheets. He looked sleepy, but not exhausted, Heero judged, automatically scanning his partner for signs of injury/stress/fatigue.

"I was expecting to find you wrapped up in one of the sleeping bags on the other side of the room," Wufei said, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. He sounded pleased.

Heero let his head sink back into the pillow. For some reason, he wasn't in any hurry to get up. Normally he was out of bed three seconds after waking, once he'd done a visual check of the room and ensured nothing had been moved or looked suspicious. "I slept fine," he confirmed.

"I know."

There was a funny tone to Wufei's voice. Heero realized, with a small flash of surprise, that his eyes had drifted closed again. He estimated he'd slept about four hours, which was more than sufficient even after a five-day mission of cat-naps and sleeping with one eye open.

His gaze focused on Wufei, trying to analyze that strange note in his partner's voice. Amused? Exasperated?

"...I'll get used to it eventually," Wufei elaborated without further prompting. "Sharing the bed with you. Well, with you and your gun." 

Heero followed Wufei's pointed gaze. He'd scrunched up against the wall during the night, defensive even in his sleep. His Glock had been left stranded on the sheets by the retreating pillow.

Heero glanced at his partner obliquely. Wufei knew he slept with a gun at hand, and hadn't said anything last night. Heero always had a weapon at his fingertips, even back when he was sleeping near Odin - that is to say, as near as the other man would let him, which was never so close that a single attacker or grenade blast could incapacitate them both.

He and Wufei were considerably closer. Heero automatically checked the window behind them and wondered if they should move the bed. The proximity sensors would detect a car bomb or someone close enough to lob a grenade, but they weren't ranged for a shot from a mortar. He hadn't even thought of this last night.

"You okay?"

"Yes," Heero answered, turning away from the window. He'd gotten used to Wufei's ability to read his reactions, to feel the tension that had suddenly sprung up in his body when nobody else, not even Odin, had been able to.

Wufei didn't look convinced.

Heero's eyes dropped back to the Glock lying between them like a sword. How much of a problem was this going to be? It had taken Heero nearly an hour to get to sleep with his partner so close, if he had to try to do it without a gun-

"As I said, I guess I'll get used to it," Wufei smirked, rolling onto his back and putting his hands beneath his head.

"I always have a weapon beneath my pillow when we sleep in the same room, during a mission," Heero said slowly, not sure why this was bothering Wufei now. And wondering how he could talk his partner into letting him keep his security blanket.

"Yes, but..." there was the usual tight, controlled smile on Wufei's lips. The smirk was trembling on the edge of something warmer though, as if it couldn't decide whether to be sarcastic or sincere. "I've never been close enough to observe you properly in those circumstances. You have an interesting twitch when you sleep."

Heero frowned, puzzled. Wufei slipped his right hand from beneath his head, holding it up where Heero could see it. The hand was held loosely, fingers slightly curled. And the trigger finger was flexing spasmodically in illustration.

"Oh." Heero stared at the imaginary gun being fired. He wasn't happy about that gesture. He wondered what he'd been dreaming about.

"You watched me sleep?" The words slipped out involuntarily and caught Heero off guard. That had been something that had started to happen to him in contact with Wufei, and he was at a loss to explain it. He'd opened his mouth to speculate about removing the Glock's charger while he slept, and instead that question came out, uneasy, defensive. The trigger-action was already something that had startled him; he was wondering what else Wufei had seen of him while he slept, while his barriers were down. What his partner would think of it.

"I didn't think I had much choice in the matter," Wufei pointed out with a wry grin. "I woke up ten minutes ago, and I rather wanted to get out of bed and visit the bathroom, but that twitch made me decide to stay exactly where I was until you woke up. Speaking of which..." Wufei levered himself off of the bed and stood up stretching.

"I'm sorry."

Wufei's stretch hitched and he stared down at Heero in surprise, his arms still in the air. "What? Good grief, man, I'm not about to hold you accountable for a reflex twitch while you sleep. I'm sure I have the same."

"That I listened. Yesterday. While you were having a nightmare." Heero had become suddenly acutely aware of why this had bothered Wufei. Up until now he'd put it down to his partner's hyper-sensitivity due to drugs and fatigue. As far as Heero was concerned, it had been a legitimate and harmless way of getting information about Wufei's state of mind when neither of them had wanted to address the problem directly. Now he understood why Wufei had reacted so badly. He'd been lucky his partner had only punched him quickly on the way out.

Heero fingered the bruise on his jaw, checking the state of the swelling, and caught Wufei's wince from the corner of his eye.

"Let's just forget about yesterday. We both screwed up," Wufei muttered, turning away. Heero nodded at his partner's back. That's what they usually did when they had a serious fight. Once the original cause was resolved, the snarled words, the insults and the blows were deleted from memory. Unimportant, a product of anger, of the tension that lived with them like a third tiger.

"Hey, don't you have to get to work?" Wufei had glanced at his watch while heading towards the door. "It's past ten."

"No, I finished my report yesterday, and I asked Armand to do the follow-through." Wufei spun around, looking surprised. "I have the day off," Heero added. The surprise doubled.

"Day off?" Wufei echoed as if these were foreign words he was trying to figure out.

"I was going to go to L4. I thought that was where you might be. If you hadn't come back last night."

"You were going to come looking for me?" Wufei seemed caught completely off guard.

Heero nodded. He wanted to ask Wufei if he really had been on L4, but he wasn't going to go anywhere near that question. He wasn't sure he would know what to do with the answer. Anything to do with Quatre and Wufei seemed to elicit an unusual degree of anger these days.

"...Well...L4? Would have been a wasted trip, I wasn't there," Wufei said slowly.

Oh. Winner's call yesterday must have been a coincidence after all. He certainly had looked surprised when Heero had told him about the argument, but that could have been feigned.

Wufei was looking at him. You had a lot of bladder control when you'd done as many ops and surveillance mission as they had, Heero thought with a touch of amusement which was also something he had cultivated through his contact with Wufei. His partner looked like he expected questions. Heero wondered if he should ask them. He didn't give a damn where Wufei had been, where he'd gone to get his space and calm down, who he'd talked to, if anybody. Heero understood now why it hadn't been him. And as long as it hadn't been Quatre - as long as it had been just anybody, and Quatre did not have some kind of privileged status as the man Wufei confided in when he had problems - then it didn't matter.

A slight tension left Wufei's shoulders with a minute shrug and he headed towards the door. Heero watched him leave, Wufei’s movements as graceful and deadly as a well-balanced blade. He's back, Heero realized. He really came back and he's staying.

Heero rolled onto his back as the door shut, and he rubbed the grit of sleep from his eyes, felt the bruise at his jaw again. The swelling was all but gone today. More details of last night were coming back to him. And questions.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

What if I'm not up to this...?

No, kid. Wrong. Odin's voice in Heero's head was phlegmatic, as usual, with a tinge of exasperation and amusement maybe. You're getting it wrong again, kid. Don't think like that, because it'll lead to 'how can I be up to it', which just comes down to 'how can I fix it', pretending and manipulating Chang's feelings again. Just be yourself. It appears to be enough for him, strangely enough.

Odin had always been a part of him, something big and fundamental that he never questioned. Only this last month, particularly these past few days, had he been thinking about Odin a bit differently. He remembered the man's distance, but also his smiles, the care he took with Heero. He remembered their contract: Odin would protect him and train him, and in exchange Heero would pretend to be his son and give him a cover story and some backup. That contract had set the distance between them, but it had also been comforting, tangible proof of the need between them, something that would guarantee that Odin wouldn't discard Heero without very good reason.

For the first time, Heero wondered if Wufei had considered their arrangement like that. If Heero had, too.

He thought he might have grown up to be like Odin, a circumstance which didn't displease him; he could have done a lot worse. But Odin had cut Heero off in the end. Even before his death, the contract killer had planned to abandon his 'son'. Probably for the latter's sake, so Heero could lead a normal life. Not that that had worked out. Heero hoped he could manage what Odin had been unable to do: cross the distance between himself and the only other person he'd ever let close to him.

He'd distantly registered the flush, and he opened his eyes as Wufei closed the door behind him. His partner walked into the room slowly, with maybe a trace of uncertainty as he glanced quickly at his clothes, folded on the dresser, then dropped his gaze to his bare feet. He wandered over to the bed as if pulled by a string. Heero watched him. He could feel it, too. A lot of walls and barriers had been knocked down a few hours ago. That left a whole lot of wide open space to get lost in.

Wufei stared down at the mattress, and then he nudged it with his foot.

"I'm still on sick leave until I show up at Sally's office and get my papers," he announced abruptly. "Might as well take the day off too." The words had come a bit awkwardly out of his mouth. "Let's go into town and get a bed."

Heero looked at him inquisitively.

"I am not sleeping on a mattress on the floor," Wufei announced imperiously. "I got enough of that during the war. We are going into town, and we are buying a bed. If you want to."

The last words were muttered, and Wufei had turned away a bit abruptly to stare at his clothes on the dresser. After a couple of seconds he seemed to kick himself into motion and walked in that direction. Heero noted the stiffness of his neck, the way his body had lost some of its grace.

"That sounds good." 

Wufei's body lost a bit of that edgy coil. Heero, relieved, hesitated to add the obvious objection. He didn't want Wufei to think he had any doubts about- but since this was a question of basic security, his mouth was already forming the question. "Do you think we can find a bed big enough?" Big enough for what was obvious; Wufei knew Heero's safe distance like he knew the blast radius of a grenade.

"Yes," Wufei replied with a small smile over his shoulder that reassured Heero somewhat; despite the abruptness of the question, it had not been taken badly. "The place I bought my bed had some really big sizes. Not quite that big," he added, glancing at the mattresses, "but close enough."

Heero merely nodded, it seemed safer; the slightly vulnerable look that had brushed his usually resilient and arrogant partner for a moment there had made him nervous. The air between them still felt sensitive and fragile, like the skin over a newly healed burn. Buying a bed seemed a safer occupation than talking right at the moment.

 

 

The music managed to take harmless notes and scales, and pound any sort of melodiousness out of them. Heero wondered just how much trouble he'd be in if he whipped out his gun and shot out the store's speakers. Probably a lot less trouble than if he shot Miranda. Did that make it all right? Heero tried to mentally run that line of reasoning past a judge, and decided to keep it in his holster.

Wufei had been Miranda's first victim, by reason of being the first in the store and more immediately approachable. He'd done something Heero could never hope to imitate: peeled Miranda off in about five sentences without being rude or frightening her. He'd explained he wanted to buy a bed, introduced himself, then Heero, and before he knew it the latter had caught a bad case of Miranda. A warning look from black eyes over her head indicated that Wufei had done this on purpose, and he wanted Heero to take care of her and keep her off his back. They'd done this before, Heero distracting people while Wufei, the more observant investigator, ferreted around for clues. Heero was up to that sort of mission; when he talked, most people listened to him assiduously. Some witnesses forgot to blink for several minutes in a row. But he didn't understand why he was required to do this today when as far as he could tell, Miranda's only crime was to have a shrill voice.

She was talking constantly. It was almost as annoying as the music. Her hands fluttered from her arms to her chest, then to cover her mouth as she giggled. Every time Heero stepped back, she'd move right into his personal space again; granted, his personal space was pretty large, but he rather wished she'd figure it out.

It was strange. Heero had caused mass murderers to drop their weapons with one glare and a menacing gesture. But it never seemed to work on young female civilians. He had tried giving Miranda a watered-down version of the same treatment, but she'd only asked him if the air conditioning was bothering him, and then started talking about the problems she had with her contact lenses and how she was considering eye surgery. Heero had caught a minute grin from that rat he had considered his partner up until now, as Wufei wandered by to look at mattresses without coming to the rescue.

Miranda was wearing perfume. It wasn't a lot, and it wasn't unpleasant, but it was there, as slightly aggrieving as her presence as she moved again to bridge the gap he'd tried to put between them. She also wandered between him and the door on a regular basis.

Heero was multi-tasking as usual. A small part of his mind kept a suspicious watch on Miranda; wouldn't be the first time a pretty bottle had contained a potent poison, and maybe Wufei knew something he hadn't shared. Most of Heero's mind was on his surroundings, though that was so instinctive that it didn't require all that much active attention. Each time Miranda, himself or Wufei moved, a strategy board evolved automatically in his mind so that he knew, a second later, exactly how he'd react to an attack from one of the three entrances to the store, where he'd shove Miranda to get her out of harm's way, in which direction he'd dodge to not get in Chang's line of fire and a host of other reactions, all primed and waiting for a starting signal.

And Heero was also watching Wufei as the latter walked around. He'd been doing that a lot these past weeks and the habit was hard to break. When their partnership first started, Wufei was part of Heero's mental and physical space, like his right hand or his gun. He knew his partner's habits, his fighting style, his warning signals. Then Susan Wu's little tricks had shown him there was a whole side to Wufei he didn't know at all. Since then, he'd been trying to learn this aspect of his partner like an anthropologist studied wild animals - and just about as carefully once he realized it was making Wufei paranoid.

Wufei had walked right past most of the beds and was lingering in the deluxe section. Heero was rather surprised (in the background, Miranda changed the subject, but she was still talking about something unimportant. A customer walked in through the main door, was scrutinized and assigned a position in Heero's unfolding mental strategy.) True, the deluxe section contained many big beds, but there were others of correct size in the normal price ranges. Heero didn't care about money; the only things he spent his salary on were computer parts for his personal network and his bike. He didn't know how much he had in the bank account they'd set up for him at Ops, but he thought it was probably more than sufficient to indulge in an expensive bed if Wufei wanted it. He was assuming they'd share the costs; it was going to be their bed after all. Though Wufei could be funny when it came to matters of money and 'imposing his presence in Heero's house', whatever that meant, so Heero hadn't said anything. He was hoping he'd be able to play it by ear when they got to the cashiers.

Miranda started talking about this great bar she went to regularly. Heero told her, when she asked, that he'd never heard of it. Wufei sat down on a big bed that was very low off the floor, bouncing on the mattress a few times in a way that took up a few percent more of Heero's attention.

"Oh, that's a very popular model," Miranda supplied, switching gears seamlessly. "We have several types of mattresses to go with it, too."

Wufei didn't look satisfied. He shrugged off her bright attention, got up and moved on.

"Were you looking for anything in particular?" Miranda chirped, finally bringing a bit more of her attention towards clinching a deal, which seemed a reasonable attitude for a vendor, Heero thought.

"As I said, big, solid frame, no-...fancy stuff." Wufei waved a dismissive hand towards a four-poster. "I'll look, don't worry. You keep talking with my friend," he added with a slight smile and a warning look at Heero, indicating the latter was to keep her busy without being rude.

Miranda turned a brilliant smile at Heero who could feel the Glock itching in its holster. He normally wasn't so twitchy. Something about Miranda was making him watchful and irritated, though he wasn't sure why, she was being quite nice. And then there was the way Wufei had said 'I'm looking for a bed' when Miranda had zeroed in on him at the door. 'I'm looking'. It was logical; Wufei was the one who cared about this kind of comfort, who wanted a bed. He'd run his choice past Heero before actually buying it, it was to be hoped. But...for some reason that irritated him too, and Miranda was making it worse by hanging around him and not letting him relax.

Wufei put his hands on his hips as he appraised yet another bed. He looked at it for a few seconds, then sat down near the cushions and bounced on it again. Heero actually lost the thread of Miranda's conversation for a few seconds.

"...the band playing tonight is absolutely fantastic. What kind of music do you like, Heero?"

"Jazz," Heero lied; he had no musical preferences whatsoever, most forms of art bored him and puzzled him in equal measure, but he'd long ago figured out that a banal or expected answer was much preferable to the truth when trying to not stand out too much. Duo had taught him that.

"Ah, well, this is more modern, but they use a trumpet of some kind, so that's very much the same, right?"

Wufei stiffened and shook his head minutely as if he were trying to clear tinnitus. Then he reached over to the headboard of the bed he was sitting on, feeling it thoughtfully. It was solid wood with thick joins. To Heero it looked big and bed-shaped, like every other bed Wufei had examined. What the hell was his partner looking for?

Wufei cast a quick look at Miranda over his shoulder and then gave the headboard a quick, discreet but very hard tug. Wood creaked a little, but even from where he was - distracting Miranda from Wufei's tests, if Heero had read his partner's body language correctly - Heero judged the bed to be very-

...solid...

...a flash...shoving away from the headboard with all his might, back onto the hardness of Wufei's erection stretching him wide - his partner's strong hands making the wood groan under his fingers just like he was doing now, on either side of Heero's hands, using the grip to slam into Heero, sending him crashing back into the wood, pinned-

"What?" he asked a bit weakly. He was horrified to discover he'd almost lost his mental awareness of his surroundings. He'd definitely missed more of Miranda's words, but that wasn't such a loss.

"I was saying, it was nice of you to come help your friend choose his bed." Miranda had gotten nearer again. Closer up, her perfume's scent was slightly different, warmed by her skin. The fluttering hand landed on his arm briefly, and it was gone again so quickly that Heero, frozen in indecision about how to react, was left to stare at it helplessly. "You said you two worked together?"

"Yes. We work for the Preventers." He normally didn't add that detail, but he'd known that to make people back off.

"Really?" Miranda didn't back off. A mother and child entered through the side entrance; more innocents to fit into his mental map and defensive strategy. "That's so interesting!" Wufei moved over, in a graceful fluid movement, and tugged at the footboard. It was a solid piece like the headboard, but it had rectangular cutouts in it that made it look like prison bars in Heero's mind.

Until Wufei thoughtfully slipped his fingers through one of the large openings and tugged at the piece of wood left between, slightly rounded at the edge-

\- Wufei's hands catching and holding in the wood, anchoring him as Heero thrust into his body; he could feel strong legs curling around his waist, pulling him in hard-

Heero grunted weakly, aware Miranda had ended her latest monologue with a questioning note.

"That'd be great! I'm sure your friend would love to come too!"

I certainly hope so. Er, what?

Wufei got up from the bed. Heero's confusion was lost in a flash of disappointment; he'd rather liked that one. His partner looked at the next one thoughtfully. He sat down on it heavily, and a slight moue crossed his features.

"That one is also a very nice model," Miranda chirped up. "Somewhat expensive, but you get a very good bed for your money! The quality-"

"It squeaks," Wufei interrupted. Ah, so that was what he was testing? A rhythmic squeak would be annoying enough while they were having sex, but it would be even worse if there were noise at each toss and turn from one of the partners while they were trying to sleep. Both of them had excellent hearing and trigger reflexes. Peaceful nights would not ensue. Wufei eyed a few more beds. Heero glanced back at the one Wufei had been trying before; that one hadn't squeaked. Not until Wufei had tugged on it hard, and surely anything made of wood would creak under those conditions. Maybe Heero could build a frame out of solid metal in the Ops toolshop? Then they could get out of here and away from Miranda and this music. But would he manage to make a headboard and footboard like that? Worth trying.

Heero glanced at Wufei to judge if he'd be amenable to that suggestion, and found black eyes watching him.

"That one," Wufei announced, pointing at the bed Heero had been looking at. "Now, the mattress-"

"Oh, that's a very good choice. Isn't it, Heero?" Miranda gave him a brilliant smile. Her hand fluttered to his sleeve and stayed there this time, until Heero went to examine the bed more closely, the first reason for moving away that came to his mind that didn't involve breaking any parts of Miranda's wrist. Wufei had asked him to distract her, not harm her.

He noticed Wufei looking at Miranda's hand fixedly as it started its butterfly path from her chest to her mouth again.

"Oh, Heero said that you two might show up this evening at this club I told him about." Miranda dimpled at Wufei. Her smile lost some wattage as he stared back. He wasn't scowling, in fact his eyebrow was raised inquisitively, but for some reason it seemed to take the wind from her sails. "Ah, I'll be there with some friends, just a couple of girl friends from work-"

"Really? Yuy and I might be busy. We work for the Preventers," Wufei said slowly.

"Oh, I know, Heero told me! It's amazing, you're both only my age!"

"Actually a few years younger," Wufei murmured to Heero's surprise. It was a good thing when people misjudged their age, it avoided awkward questions.

"Oh?" Miranda's eyes had narrowed a bit. "Ah, but my friend Lisa is only eighteen, if you're looking for a date."

Heero's mental world screeched to a momentary halt. Date?!

"Unless you've already got a girlfriend? Is that why you're getting the big bed?" Miranda inquired saucily, while Heero stared at her, aghast, irritated...but not, after all, all that surprised.

"No girlfriend, no." Wufei had gone to sit down on the bed he'd selected. "Yu- Heero, what do you think?"

"I think we'll be working tonight," Heero said tightly. Now he knew why his instincts had been putting him on guard against the giddy twit from the start.

"Oh, but you said you'd try to come!" Miranda interjected in a charming voice with a hint of whine that put her dangerously close to the speakers' annoyance level.

"I meant the bed," Wufei interrupted her before Heero could ask when the hell he'd said that. "What do you think of the bed?"

Heero had thought his preference had been obvious and had influenced Wufei's choice. "It looks fine."

"Come and try it though," Wufei insisted, patting the covers next to him. "I don't want to get something you won't like."

"...Okay." Heero moved forward. Miranda didn't follow him this time.

"This isn't the mattress we'd pick, but you can still test the frame. Make sure it doesn't creak under both our weights," Wufei said, smoothing the covers in a distracted gesture.

Heero sat down cautiously, bracing against sinking into the mattress that might unbalance him and make him momentarily vulnerable. The slight lapse of his guard was made easier by the fact that Miranda was out of his immediate aggression zone now. She'd actually taken a few steps back and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Miranda?" Wufei asked, raising his voice. "For the mattress. Both Y- Heero and I are light sleepers. We'll need one of those mattresses you have on demo near the front of the store, the kind that absorbs shocks and movements."

Heero looked from Wufei's expression to Miranda's. It never ceased to amaze him that some people, women or men, were blind enough about his true nature that they were sexually interested in him. He’d have thought human beings would have a greater sense of preservation. Wufei often ran interference between Heero and those deluded people, to avoid Heero having to be rude or hostile to get the point across. In terms of Wufei's usually polished diplomacy, this had felt rather crude and forceful though.

Miranda's face had smoothed; her smile was as artificial as the music. "Yes, I know the kind. Weight distribution and patented spring-like material ensure that however much one person tosses and turns, there won't be any movement to bother the bed's other occupant." The words sounded rehearsed. The next ones did not. They sounded regretful in a way that somehow wasn't. "However I'm not sure we have that type of mattress in these sizes."

Wufei was looking at a point an inch above her head. "Would you mind finding out?"

"I'll go check. I'll be right back," Miranda murmured professionally. She turned on her heels in a gesture that was almost regimental and marched off towards the office.

Heero watched her leave, automatically correcting his mental map of the store. Then he glanced at Wufei, who was leaning back against his hands, a tight smile on his face. He was curious, but he wasn't sure how to ask the question-

"She was annoying me," Wufei answered him curtly before he even had to open his mouth.

She was annoying me from the start, but I still managed to be half-way polite, Heero wanted to point out, but didn't. One reason being, he couldn't exactly point out how Wufei had been rude; nothing in that conversation should have caused that much tension.

"I've been getting better at understanding the way people react," he said instead, slowly, "it was necessary for our job."

"Yes, we're supposed to manage human relations without the aid of semtex these days," Wufei agreed calmly.

"But I rather missed her interest in me until it was blatant. And I don't think I could have gotten rid of her that quickly without..." being openly rude, he meant to say, but he wasn't sure how Wufei would take that remark.

A small smile brushed Wufei's lips, but he didn't say anything. He just let himself slide back until he was lying on the bed, hands beneath his head.

"This mattress is way too soft," he announced. "Feels like a water bed. How do people sleep on these? I'd prefer the floor."

Heero gave the mattress a judicious poke with a finger. There was no way he'd be able to lie back like that, relaxing in an unsecured location. Part of him was amazed that Wufei could. Intellectually, Heero knew the chances of being attacked here were remote, but the only place he could let go like that was back at the safe-house.

"Hopefully Miranda will be able to get us the kind of mattress you were talking about." Heero had never slept on a water bed, and, if this was anything like it, he didn't want to.

"Not if there's the slightest chance she can get away with telling us it's not possible for this frame, I'm afraid," Wufei muttered, looking a bit annoyed with himself. "If you want to learn more about human interaction, write this down: never annoy someone who's supposed to perform a service for you. I probably should have just ignored her instead of getting her back up."

Heero ran that scenario in his mind and decided he liked the one where Wufei got rid of Miranda much better, though he wasn't sure why. He shoved the feeling aside to address the problem instead: "If she comes back with that answer, we'll just go talk to her manager to make sure," he announced reasonably.

The mattress beneath him shivered as Wufei laughed silently. "See? You have a much better grasp of this 'human relations' thing than you give yourself credit for!"

"Really?" Heero glanced obliquely at his partner. "I must have learned from the best."


	42. Epilogue Part II

"The roots of a tree that grew up in wind are strong"  
\--- Japanese proverb

 

Miranda's sales instincts were better honed than her mating ones, or her thirst for petty revenge. They left the store in possession of a bed and the required mattress to be delivered in a couple of weeks, as well as some sheets and blankets. Heero began to relax as soon as they got away from the canned music and Miranda's artificial smile, though he didn't let his guard down until they were safely back at the house and the security was set.

"I think I'll go take a shower, then lie down for awhile," Wufei muttered, caught in a yawn so large he nearly dropped the evening's take-out he was carrying. "I'm still not one hundred percent, and I don't want Sally to have any doubts about my health tomorrow when I get that final certificate off her."

"She won't," Heero assured him.

"I should bring you along, just in case she does; we can run our usual circuit on the obstacle course to change her mind. Gerrie has some new cadets over this week. We should probably go just to show them how it's done." Wufei smiled like a tiger spotting a tethered lamb.

"Yes." He'd almost said 'if you want to', but he still wasn't sure about using those potentially loaded words in a casual conversation.

"When she sees how badly I kick your ass in the training circle, Sally will sign off on that field-readiness certificate right away," Wufei continued smoothly, opening the fridge.

"I'm sure Sally has no doubts about your physical form," Heero replied, but didn't add anything about mental condition, which would be Po's main worry.

Wufei fumbled the take-out as he was about to place it in the fridge. Heero tensed, wondering if the omission had been obvious. But his partner put the dishes carefully away, and the little of his back and shoulders that Heero could see were not tensing with anger.

"So we'll be combat ready by this time tomorrow. Are there a lot of fires brewing out there? I've been out of the loop." Wufei straightened and closed the fridge, and he reached towards a few other odds and ends he'd bought without looking Heero's way.

"Not that I know of, but I've not been in touch with Sam for six days either, bar my mission report." Heero shrugged. The blankets and sheets he was holding crinkled against his chest in their plastic wraps. "I can contact Une and find out."

"I'm sure they'll tell us. And do you think I'm ready to take on a mission now? Won't let you down, will I?"

Heero checked his partner's stance apprehensively, but Wufei was leaning back against the counter, apparently perfectly at ease. "Of course not. I mean, of course you won't let me down, and I think you're ready." He just hoped it wouldn't be a difficult mission to start with. He was fairly certain their battlefield entente was intact; it was the first thing they'd had between them, it was still one of the most important in both their minds. Their lives and their mission depended on it. Heero didn't think that could suffer. But he needed to be sure. Maybe running that obstacle course tomorrow was a good idea-

Wufei was coming towards him, but his hands were in his pockets, his stance non-aggressive. He was frowning thoughtfully at the sheets and blankets Heero was holding.

"I was going to put these away," Heero changed the subject with a glance at the bundle in his arms. "Where should we-"

"Were you? Allow me." Wufei reached for the sheets and blankets, and Heero handed them to him automatically.

Wufei carefully gathered the packets in his arms and then tossed them over his shoulder. Heero stiffened as if the tumbled linen were live grenades, and stared wildly at his partner. Wufei still looked quite calm. He'd put his hands back in his pocket and he was now staring at Heero, up close.

"Spill, Heero. What's wrong?"

Wrong?! Heero batted down a flash of alarm. He thought he'd been doing okay.

"Wh-what?"

Wufei sighed. "Talk to me, will you?"

Talk? Heero felt his body freeze into an unreadable chunk to avoid expressing a sudden flinch of pain. Talking as he had a few hours ago, when Wufei had come back, had been pretty unique. And pretty fucking horrible. Ripping off the dirty bandage over his own so-far unquestioned feelings and laying them bare for judgment, both by Wufei and, in a way, by himself. Standing there, wondering if he'd just terminated with his own words the partnership that had been such an integral part of his life for the last year; proved himself to be fundamentally unable to give enough to another human being to keep him. He'd rather lose three square inches of skin rather than go through that again. But if Wufei needed to hear something...

"Talk about what?" He tried to keep the reluctance from his voice.

"Why have you been walking around me all morning like you're navigating a minefield?" Wufei's voice was still so calm. In fact, he sounded a bit...Heero didn't want to read the unusual slump in his partner's shoulders; he was afraid it was disappointment.

"Look." One of Wufei's hands left his pocket to rub at the bridge of his nose. "I know I've been about as pleasant to live with these past few months as a wounded bear. Is that why you're tiptoeing around me? You just want to avoid another explosion?"

"No," Heero answered honestly. At this point, he'd almost prefer a storm; he wasn't sure what this preternatural calm was leading to.

"No?" Wufei looked perplexed. "Because I'd understand that. I must have been impossible to live with since I got hit by that car. I'm surprised you put up with it."

"I don't mind." Putting up with Wufei, even in a bad mood, was the opposite of what he was worrying about right now. 

"You don't?" Wufei's mouth curled up a bit in the corners. "Amazing. I live with a guy for over a year and I only figure out now that he's a masochist."

The remark startled him. "Masochist? No. I don't mind pain, I was trained to withstand it, but I'd still rather avoid anything extreme, and I certainly don't get off on it."

He knew, as soon as he saw the eyes widen and the dark pupils dilate, that he'd said something he shouldn't have, though he didn't know what. He forced himself not to flinch as Wufei pulled his hands from his pockets and reached for him. He wasn't sure what to expect, though at this point he was prepared for anything.

The hands didn't grab him, didn't strike or grasp his collar or shake him. One landed on his shoulder, the other brushed the hair out of his eyes, almost hesitantly. The new and completely unexpected gesture made him tense, despite his resolve not to react.

"Right," Wufei said quietly, eyes fixed on Heero's so that the latter was unable to look away. "When you start getting hyper-literal, that's when I know there's something very wrong. And I'd rather you tell me than having you try to 'fix it' again." Heero winced. "Yeah, remember that? Okay, so come on. Tell me."

Heero stayed silent and frozen in indecision. Each word he could think of was a potential deathtrap.

Wufei muttered something; it sounded like Cantonese and rather rude. He looked like he was trying very hard to keep the calm he had wrapped himself in. The hands on Heero's shoulder gave him a minute shake. "Look, Yuy, spit it out already. What's the worse I could do?"

"Leave."

Heero's muscles tightened in reproof, his jaw clenching around the word he shouldn't have let slip.

"Leave?" Wufei was not controlling himself at all; he was letting his emotions freely cross his face, his body, his eyes. That voluntary openness, and the trust it implied, which Heero knew were just as difficult for his partner as they were for himself, shamed him. But he didn't know how to reciprocate. He didn’t know if he should. 

Wufei looked worried now. "It can't be that bad. Why on earth do you think I'll-"

"You did before," Heero muttered in defeat.

The hands flinched and dropped from his shoulders as Wufei crossed his arms over his chest. Heero looked away from the flash of pain that went through his friend's eyes and stance.

"Okay," Wufei muttered, turning away. "I guess I deserved that."

"It's not an accusation." Heero's usual monotone sounded completely uncaring even to his own ears. He glared at the fallen sheets a few feet away. He could hear the squeak of the spring-board floor as Wufei stepped onto the tatami and walked away. "You said it, we both screwed up the other day, we both- I didn't want to bring it back up, but every time I start to say something, I'm afraid- I'm used to your temper. It's part of you." Wufei's burning intensity sometimes singed the people he let close to him, and Heero accepted this, like Wufei accepted Heero's distance, his occasional bouts of day-long silences, his killer instincts, his cold dedication to the mission.

"I just...I don't know how this is supposed to work. I still don't know how you expect me to act," Heero said into the silence.

"You could ask," Wufei suggested without looking around, in a voice that was clearly striving for calm and to keep the word 'moron' from the end of the sentence.

Ask? A novel concept. "You mean you'd tell me? You wouldn't misinterpret the question and get all defensive and-" He should stop talking. Heero struggled to regain the safe distance between them and realized he wasn't sure where the boundaries were any more.

Wufei had the grace not to challenge that, or even dodge it. Heero felt no vindication in the sudden slump in his partner's shoulders; it only made him feel worse. Trapped.

"I can try-...I just want you to be yourself, Yuy. To want something from me, and ask for it. How hard is that?" He sounded defeated, though.

"Be myself?" Heero wanted to snort at the irony, but his control was too tight. "When I tried to fix things before - that was me being myself. That was a logical course of action. At the time." He was forcing the words out against considerable resistance; they were short and hard, he couldn't match Wufei's quiet tone even though he wanted to. "If I had to do the same thing again, if I am in the same position again, I can't say for certain I won't make the same mistake. I know now why it wasn't right, but that's because you shouted it at me before you left. It took me a while to figure it out even then. And now, I don't know how I'll react to other new situations. I can ask, but we both hate to talk, to- and anyway, the questions themselves are...are probably something you expect me to know already. They're already a failure.” 

"...makes sense..."

Heero glanced obliquely at his partner. Wufei had his back to him; he was standing in front of the sword rack, one hand back in his pocket, the other tracing the edge of his sword's hilt. He still didn't look angry. 

"Might as well get one thing clear. If you screw up that badly again, I'll probably leave."

Cold shock went through Heero’s gut like a shot. 

"As you so aptly pointed out, Yuy, I have a temper; it's part of me.” Of course that had insulted him. Damn it- “And it's more than that. I-...have a hard time dealing with my own feelings sometimes. I'm sure you sympathize with that. I sometimes need to get away from a situation. Step back, think about it, figure out exactly why I'm angry, because I can fool myself pretty well when I'm the one at the center of the problem." Wufei's voice sounded raw. Heero guessed, from the way the strong back muscles were knotting, just what it cost him to admit this.

"So yeah, if you really fuck up, I might leave."

Wufei's fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword.

"I'll come back though. I swear it. On my honor."

He came back yesterday, too. It wasn't that Heero had overlooked that fact, but he'd made so many plans to go find his partner and try to figure out what he could do, that he'd not actually stopped to contemplate the significance of the fact that Wufei had returned less than twenty four hours after that ugly episode in his room.

"I'm not saying this can work out between us." Wufei was speaking clearly, slowly and deliberately. But he didn't sound removed from his own words. He was keeping no defenses against them and their consequences whatsoever. "We both have a lot of scars. A lot of things holding us back. You're not the only one who can fuck this up, Heero. I might be the one person in the universe who is as leery of his own emotions as you are. Which is not a promising fact. When they say couples should share common interests, I don't think they had mayhem and emotional repression in mind." Heero could feel the smile in his partner's voice, though the humor was subdued.

"But I won't leave - for real - just because I get mad. I...I would rather you ask the questions and make the mistakes, even if I blow out of here and then come back with my tail between my legs twenty four hours later. We're not at war anymore. When we're not on a mission, we're allowed to make mistakes. Both of us. I shouldn't have walked out like that yesterday. I can't promise I won't do it again, though. But once I've cooled off, I'll be back, and we can try to sort it out. You don't have to be worried about screwing up."

"When I make mistakes, people die." The words were reluctant, dredged up over the years yet still aching and bloody.

"Get a grip, Yuy," Wufei turned around brusquely and gave him a glare which Heero judged was far from serious. "I told you, we're not at war anymore. Besides, you've already screwed up a few times and I'm still breathing. I'm not going to curl up and die just because you behave like a moron."

"No, you'll just run away," Heero muttered before he could stop himself. He glanced up worriedly at Wufei, whose eyebrows were making a spirited effort to reach his hairline, despite the difficulty that would represent.

"I do not run away. I choose to remove myself from the situation and go and meditate elsewhere," Wufei sniffed.

The tone was familiar; like the ugly, practical room around them, the dojo where they sparred like fiends, the guns locker that held the tools of their trade. It freed something in Heero. He inhaled slowly. It felt like an iron band had just loosened around his chest. "If you say so, Chang," he murmured. It came out more shaken than sarcastic, but it was a good effort.

"Anyway, I came back. And I probably won't be quite so quick to leave next time. I can weather your screw-ups, Yuy. I'm tougher than you are apparently. Hah, I'm tougher than old oak. Which is a good thing because if your bone-headed mistakes can't kill me, they are sufficiently big and weird to at least inflict flesh wounds if I wasn't so strong," Wufei continued, nodding judiciously.

"I'm not that bad," Heero growled, a strange smile trying to ruin his glare. Why was he so glad to have just been insulted in about three different ways? "I already said I was sorry for trying to spy on you in your sleep, and not talking things over from the start, but apart from that, what did I do that was so-"

"Checking up on me ten times a day? Calling me on the phone like some kid you left without a nanny? Telling me exactly where you were in the house like I was going to have a panic attack if I went to your room and didn't find you there?"

Heero winced. "I thought it might help you to feel a bit more...secure." The strategy had been to make Wufei feel 'cared for', actually, but that sounded even weirder.

"It only made me feel paranoid. That and the change of the gun locker code. Though I'll grant you that last one, I'd have done the same in your shoes," Wufei admitted in a nearly inaudible grumble

"Wufei..." the words were a bit easier now and the first name had come off his tongue without any forethought. "For my own information, just how much - or how little - does it take to make you paranoid?"

Black eyes narrowed. "It's a survival instinct for the kind of life we lead, and someone who sleeps with a gun beneath his pillow and sensors all around the house has no room to throw stones."

Heero snorted; he knew that their home was the only place Wufei slept soundly, same as Heero, and that was because of those very same sensors and security measures. He went to pick up the sheets and blankets that had fallen a few feet away. His arms were still stiff with residual tension. The rhythm of their banter was familiar, but he could feel them both skirting subjects that were a bit too new, too raw to bring to light in any context.

But they'd get used to it. It still felt like walking through a minefield, but it wasn't. A mistake wasn't fatal here; he'd have time to get familiar with these new parameters of their partnership.

"So you promise to come back, and be patient with any questions or mistakes on my part," he concluded as he picked up the last packet and turned towards the stairs. "And in return, I'll put up with the worst temper in Brussels."

"I do not have the worst temper in Brussels," Wufei countered with some dignity as he crossed the dojo behind Heero.

"You all but admitted it yourself," Heero pointed out logically, glancing back. "Not that I mind."

Wufei had his mouth open to shoot something back, but he paused, blinking in surprise.

Heero shrugged. "It makes life interesting." All of it. It all made his life interesting. "It certainly keeps me from getting rusty."

"I'll keep you from getting rusty," Wufei grumbled behind him as they made their way to the upper floor. "Your ass and that dojo floor have an appointment this afternoon."

"If someone does have a worse temper in this city, please point them out to me. I need to have them arrested and deported somewhere. Antarctica should be far enough."

"You should know." Wufei went to lean against the bathroom door and crossed his arms. "You never did say in any detail; how did the mission go? With Armand?"

Heero shrugged, his hand on their bedroom's doorknob. The mission was finished. He saw no reason to bring it up. Unless Wufei wanted an assessment of Armand's performance, in case they had to work with the man in the future? "It was all right. No heavy resistance. But being with Armand made it harder. He's a good man, but in the end I had to leave him in a defensive position and do most of the work myself. He..." Heero tried to express just what had been lacking. "He wanted to know what I was going to do."

"That seems like a reasonable thing to ask," Wufei hazarded, looking a bit perplexed.

"You don't ask," Heero pointed out.

There was a moment of silence and a flash of an unusual emotion in black eyes. Heero didn't know what it was, entirely - Pride? Pleasure? - but he thought he wouldn't mind seeing it again.

"It's not hard to figure out what you'll do, Yuy," Wufei sniffed. "I look at a situation, decide what the most dangerous course of action would be, the place where a quick, brutal strike will do the most damage, and there you are."

"And you're right behind me," Heero retorted.

Their eyes met for a second before they both looked away. Heero upgraded their battle readiness in his head. Let Une throw a tough mission their way. And then she could just step back and watch the fireworks.

"True. I should have Sally examine my head tomorrow." Wufei shook the aforementioned body part with a show of resignation. "Right. I need to shower and lie down."

Heero nodded as he shifted his grip on the sheets and swung the door open.

"Coming?"

"What?" Heero glanced back to see the bathroom door close. He thought he heard a quiet, amused snort. Coming? Wufei was just going to-

The bathroom door was open, just a crack.

Heero hesitated for a split second - how long would it take to go and put the sheets away properly first? Too long, his instincts told him. Wufei had never extended that sort of invitation before.

Who cared about sheets anyway, Heero thought, though he still stacked them carefully in the hallway before going to investigate the slightly open door.

 

 

The shower was interesting. Heero, in the beleaguered parts of his mind that could still think and plan, felt hopeful that this meant that extended foreplay was going to be a regular habit from now on. He'd rather liked that. He still had a few scratch marks on his back that demonstrated that Wufei had liked it too yesterday; but considering how the whole episode had ended, Heero hadn't been sure they wouldn't be going back to 'quick and efficient' again. From the amount of water now on the floor, which he forced himself to ignore, and the fact he was currently clean in places which rarely saw that amount of extended attention and application of soap, he was a bit reassured on the subject.

They were still a bit damp when they tumbled onto the joined mattresses. They'd been a bit distracted while toweling off. Wufei grumbled against the skin of Heero's shoulder and shoved away the sleeping bags beneath them. The zippers had been a bit uncomfortable, though Heero only became aware of it after Wufei's hand had left his erection to move the offending blanket.

The skin beneath his fingers was alternatively sliding then sticking as it dried. It was familiar, smoother than his own, only a few scars to map with his palms. Wufei arched, panting, as Heero caressed a particularly sensitive one on the back of one thigh. Then a mouth found his again.

This wasn't particularly erotic for him. Any more than the closed-mouth kiss they'd shared that first time in that old shed, after their first sparring match. He'd only crushed his mouth to Wufei's then because his first partner - a young soldier whose real name he didn't even know - had done so the first time they'd jerked each other off. Heero had thought it a handy signal - 'we're going to have sex now' - and nothing more.

Chang Wufei. Gundam Pilot 05. A soldier, an ally...maybe. A convenient fuck. An intriguing bundle of contradictory and repressed emotions. A surprisingly efficient killer, nonetheless. A good sword to have at his back. Someone to clash with, who would disagree but at least understand the arguments. A partner. A friend. But words had given out at some point. Logic stopped working. He still couldn't understand why people thought kissing was arousing. But Wufei obviously did, and Heero found this fascinating. His hand would find its own way to the crook of Wufei's neck, feeling the pulse hammer against his palm. Each caress of his tongue would change that pulse, or the way his usually unperturbed and controlled partner moved against him. It would make Wufei arch, or shiver, or moan very, very low. Heero felt each reaction with his fingers, his skin, his lips and tongue, in his guts and in his groin. He felt no need to analyze it any further.

Heero's free hand inched its way down, over a proud, stiff back, a very hard ass to muscled thighs and legs. He'd never had a woman, but it surely couldn't compare. After having so much power and lethal grace at his fingertips, it would be rather bland to handle soft flesh and worry about hurting the other. Like trying to work that damn Leo after controlling Wing. Heero smirked fiercely in the kiss and squeezed the thigh beneath his grasp, feeling muscles coil and harden in a response that sent arousal clawing through his mind and body. He arched into a downward thrust. Wufei tore his mouth away to gasp and go rigid for an instant.

Licking his lips where humidity and a familiar taste lingered, Heero reached over to the bedside table. Wufei was lapping at his neck, his chest. Heero opened the drawer and confidently picked out the lube by feel. Then he fumbled it when a tongue teased his nipple at the same time as clever fingers decided to check out his erection again. Heero managed to restart his breathing on the second try, and fished around for the fallen tube. He knew - he just knew - that there was a smirk hovering somewhere around his chest right now. With the slow, pleasurable pull of fingers wrapped around his cock, Heero couldn't generate enough competitiveness to mind. He wasn't particularly surprised when a hand flicked imperiously before his face. He set the tube in the demanding palm with resigned anticipation, if that was possible, and relaxed.

Fingers slowly stretched him, rubbing gently at the muscles, the flesh within, the- Heero blinked and tilted his hips up, legs shoving against the mattress, trying to give Wufei a better angle to that particular area. He closed his eyes against the brilliant flashes, and the dark pleasure of muscles stretching. The harsh panting, his own and his partner's, grew louder in the darkness, covering the sound of skin sliding on skin. The feel of fingers on his cock, others fucking him gently...the sensations fought over his attention. Couldn't decide...which was...the most interesting...

Okay, ready now. He squirmed away from the fingers. The hand left his cock and trailed up his chest sensuously to flick the bangs from his eyes. He opened them. Wufei was flushed, a stain of color on the gold of his skin. Heero reached up and gathered damp black strands of hair that fell into the face above his own, slipping them behind Wufei's ear. A slight smile in return. That smile was like the kissing. He couldn't explain why it mattered, but it did. Not as much as a successful mission or running out of ammo in a firefight, but it mattered.

Then his partner was gone. Heero could feel his movements through the mattress. Muttered words. The tube of lube was getting its ancestors soundly cursed for hiding at this particular moment. Heero closed his eyes. He should look for it, too. But he'd be disturbing the pleasure leisurely slinking through his muscles like cats, the sensual way his back sunk into the mattress, Wufei's fingers wrapped around his ankle even as his partner hunted for the tube with his other hand. No. Wufei could look for the lube by himself.

A plastic sound heralded the return of the tube. Heero felt the excitement curl in his chest and tighten the skin around his balls. After a few seconds, hands pressed his legs up, almost against his chest, and caressed his ass. Something blunt touched his skin, leaving a thin trail of lube behind it.

"...Heero?"

His eyes shot open. "Huh?"

A low whisper: "What do you want...?"

Heero twisted around to stare at his partner, but Wufei was nipping his jaw, dropping those words into his ear, breathlessly. Heero shifted against the bed.

"What?"

"Tell me what you want..."

Heero stared at what he could see of his partner, a few strands of black hair falling over cheekbone. He wanted to have sex. That had to be rather obvious. "What? This position is fine." Wufei's words had been low, with a slight echo of hesitation behind them- another explanation surfaced. "You're not having a black-out or something, are you?"

He twisted away to get a better look at Wufei, his mind suddenly coming back down to earth with a thump. He quickly checked his partner visually. The black eyes were very wide, but focused and showed no sign of disorientation. Surely Wufei wasn't so tired he was having a relapse! How much sleep had he gotten since he’d left? What was Sally's emergency number again?

It was the way Wufei's mouth was twitching that made Heero reassess the situation. He must have missed something.

A hand around his neck dragged him into a fierce kiss, and then a savage twist rolled them both until Heero was struggling to get his hands and knees beneath him to get his full weight off his partner. Wufei bucked, his erection hard against Heero's ass, banishing all irrelevant questions. Heero's heart started to pound. He shifted, reached for the hardness beneath him, jabbing at his skin. He positioned it and then lowered himself on it in one savage motion. Wufei groan and shudder. Heero hissed; nibbles of pain played at the edge of pleasure, highlighting it. Darkness to make the light shine brighter. Heero reached for that again. And again. His heart thundered. Wufei's fingers were on his hip now, pulling him down. Heero threw back his head, gasping. A hand - light fingers, sensual - a contrast to the hard thrusts - caressed his throat, lingered on his chest. Heero reached for more. Wufei groaned and the clench of his other fingers on Heero's hip was frantic.

Heero let go of parts of himself, one by one, shaken loose by the punishing rhythm. No control. Just pleasure. He clenched the muscles around the hardness he was riding and Wufei shouted, arching up into the thrusts. Heero wanted more of that. He wanted to see the pleasure scrawled across his lover's body. He wanted to drag it out, taste it on copper-colored skin, feel it in the way Wufei's fingers tightened on his thighs, pulling him down. In the throbbing, pulsing heat within him.

Wufei thrust up to meet his savage downward movements with a shout. Heero stilled and fought for breath, feeling the body beneath his clench and tremble, surrendering. He ignored the heat of his own unsatisfied cock. He leaned forward and licked at the corner of Wufei's throat. He tasted sweat and a delicious shiver as sensitive skin was teased just a bit more.

Heero pulled away, ignoring the odd sensation of Wufei's erection slipping from him, the trickle of tepid liquid down his legs. He curled up against his partner, and allowed his hand to trail down a hard chest, abs - a slight shudder in the relaxed frame followed his fingers. Wufei sighed and rolled over, shoving Heero onto his back. Heero let the triumphant smirk loose. Black eyes caught it with a mixture of exasperation and amusement. And a dark promise of their own. Heero shivered as a long-fingered hand brushed over his lips, then tickled the skin down his chest heading south.

The hand traced the skin of his abs. Heero didn't particularly need any more arousing, but he was back in control of himself now, the mental readjustment automatic. He could wait for his partner's pleasure. It would ultimately be his; Wufei's hands had become quite skilled this past year.

The mattress shifted beneath him as Wufei leaned back, and then slid down, towards-

Heero stiffened and quickly grasped his partner's shoulder. "Wait- what-"

Black eyes met his. "Hmm?"

Heero didn't need to ask what Wufei thought he was doing. His head was near Heero's cock - which didn't feel like complaining, but it didn't get a vote. Heero ignored the way the dark hair spilled against the curve of his hip and stomach, a sensuous ripple against his skin.

"You don't have to do that." His voice was stiff, harsh.

"You're right, I don't have to." An eyebrow arched reprovingly, correcting his obviously stupid assumption that Chang Wufei could be compelled to do anything he didn't want.

"I know you don't like to-"

"How would I know if I don't like to if I've never tried it before?" Wufei interrupted in a reasonable voice. Heero was about to protest but then a tongue darted out, up his cock, and he forgot what he was about to say. Was he about to say anything? Why?

Oh, right.

"Chang-"

The tongue did its damage again. Heero managed to keep a thread of continuous thought alive though.

"You- don't have to-"

"We already established that." Warm breath against the two wet trails over his cock was sheer torture.

"I meant-"

A third trail of tongue - surely Wufei knew the mechanics of going down on someone, right? Heero had done it to him occasionally. Wufei had never reciprocated, but Heero had never pushed - never even thought of pushing -

"If you don't want to, hands are fine," Heero choked out, somehow. "You never- before-"

"I think it's a hang-up left over from my upbringing." The words tickled his cock so badly that Heero took a few seconds to figure out their meaning. "Something a man doesn't do."

"Then why-" Heero tried to keep the groan out of his voice.

"But then again, by those same sets of values I'm not supposed to let you fuck me regularly, and we certainly don't have any problem with that." The tongue darted out as a counterpoint to the argument. Heero managed to swallow. Barely.

"While according to the shudo, the rules governing the relations between two samurai, it really shouldn't matter, and there's nothing-"

Wufei's mouth covered the tip of Heero's erection, his tongue found the slit. Just a touch to start with, but when Heero practically convulsed with the sensation and groaned, the tongue gained confidence and teased with a few flicks. Then it stopped just as Heero was remembering that breathing was important.

"-there's nothing, I was saying, that we shouldn't do equally. Unless I am the superior in our association. Do you consider yourself inferior to me? In any way? Just so I know?"

Heero stared at the ceiling, every nerve in his body thrumming. What the fuck was his partner talking about? After a few stunned seconds, he managed to prop himself up on his elbows and stare. Wufei was looking back up at him languidly, curled up against his legs like a golden lion, black mane sleek and falling onto Heero's aching skin. His mouth was near Heero's cock. That...captured most of Heero's attention. He struggled to understand-

"Did you know that in certain cultures, the seed of a powerful man is supposed to transfer some of his vitality to-"

"Are you teasing me?!"

Almond eyes blinked slowly. "Me?" Wufei asked, voice innocent. Then his eyes scrunched up a bit. "Hmm, that's a glare I've not seen before. Number twenty two if my count is right. I think I'll categorize it as 'sexually frustrated and about to reach for the gun under his pillow'."

"What?! What the hell are you- uhn...."

Heero's head thumped back against the mattress as every muscle in his shoulders, arms and neck turned to mush. Wufei's lips and tongue were-...ohhhhh...Heero made sure, in the part of himself that was dedicated to control, that he didn't obey his instincts by thrusting up wildly into the mouth slowly taking him in. Didn't want to choke Wufei. That could be unpleasant for his partner on his first time, it could be off-putting, and Heero really...

...really...

...really wanted this to happen again...at some point...uhn...in his life...

His heart was thumping wildly in his chest, his breath thundering in his lungs, drowning him-

Suction around his cock, unique feeling, like nothing else...hadn't had a blow job for-...ages-...heat, and- and tongue, mouth, lips, an edge of fingers, all swirling and tingling-

The squirming, throbbing pulse in his chest spiraled down, setting his insides on fire, and erupted from his cock-

Heero panted, eyes shut. Thoughts and feelings crept back, as if blown away by the surge of pleasure and now cautiously returning. He realized - after a few seconds - that he'd forgotten to warn Wufei that he was about to come. But his partner had no problems reading him. The last thing Heero could remember was the mouth leaving him and the firm tug of fingers. Heero shivered and started to regulate his breathing a bit.

"You scowl when you come, too," a voice informed him, somewhere nearer his ear this time.

Heero's brow scrunched up even further. He cracked his eyes open.

He'd been about to inquire if they were going to always talk this much during sex from now on, but he caught the tail end of an expression just before it disappeared behind the arrogant smirk. It was...Heero wasn't good at analyzing these things, but that didn't mean he didn't understand them at gut level. That darting, vulnerable look required him to be careful about what he said at this point, he knew that much.

"That was good," he said instead, wondering if Wufei needed to be reassured on that point - and anything that might ensure that this happened again needed to be said. And repeated if need be.

"So I gathered..." Wufei was caressing his lower lip with his thumb, a gesture that looked introspective. Heero stared at it and found himself wishing life were simpler again, and then immediately concluding that, no, he didn't, not really.

Wufei shook himself minutely, rolled over and reached towards the bedside table, with its convenient cupboard beneath the small drawer. He fished out one of the small towels they kept there and rolled back again. Heero stirred, to take it from him, but Wufei didn't even glance at him and started to pass the cloth over Heero's abs instead, wiping carefully. Heero felt the skin on his abdomen shiver as the traces of humidity cooled. They'd done this before - very rarely, and only when the other was nearer the towels, at least it was understood that that was the only reason, even though it sometimes trembled on the edge of something else. Heero tried to pin down what was different this time. A bit less brusque? A bit more a caress than a rough wipe? Or was it just in his head?

The towel was carelessly tossed over a shoulder, and Heero scowled at it as it lay, crumpled and soiled, on the floor.

"Do you do that because you're too lazy to put it in the laundry basket, or because you know it annoys me?" he growled.

"Bit of both," Wufei admitted languorously, rearranging blankets and pillows and stretching against Heero's side. "What's this afternoon's plan? Do we have anything else we can do, house-wise, while we have this...day off?" Wufei was still speaking as if the concept was a strange, foreign object he was trying to dismantle for further analysis.

"We could call in the cleaners," Heero suggested, speaking softly - Wufei was curled up against his chest, a shoulder and an arm thrown across it while black hair fell over Heero's own shoulder; he didn't want to dislodge his partner by breathing too hard or talking too loudly. He knew they were both trying to pretend this was perfectly normal, that they were used to touching each other like this for awhile after sex, as if the steel barriers that had been around their arrangement for almost two years had never existed. Heero wondered if Wufei was having any more success than he was. It felt weird. Not quite right. Not entirely wrong either. And it didn't feel like such a big deal, when he thought about it, and maybe that was what was troubling him.

"I need to do some work for Sam. He needs more details on the Antarctica base. Plans, layout, estimation of the tensile strength of any remaining underground bunkers..." he was listing things automatically, starting to write the report verbally. He detailed it aloud, concentrating on the familiar. But in the back of his mind...

"-I need to call Armand. There were a couple of spots he checked out by himself. I need to make sure there were no changes to the infrastructure on that side. I hoped he noted them if there were. Yes. I'm sure Armand would know to- he used to be a soldier though, a commando. Not an investigator, or a demolition expert either. I don't know if he- " damn, he hoped he didn't have to go back to Antarctica to check. "If I go back, do you want to come with me? It won't be very interesting. The regular forces should have cleaned out the place. Now we just have to demolish it, get rid of it once and for all. You could stay here and rest."

"Huh," Wufei huffed. He inched away and turned to lie on his stomach; he did leave an arm draped over Heero's chest though. The mutter had almost been a growl. Yes, okay, that question didn't deserve an answer; Wufei had made it quite clear what being left behind had felt like.

"I'll check with Armand, and write that report." Sam wanted it by this evening; he'd not taken the notion of Heero having a day off any more seriously than the existence of dragons. "If Armand's report is inconclusive, there might be a flight tomorrow afternoon. I'll check. Cha- Wufei...why is physical contact something that's...something important?"

The question had been bubbling beneath the surface, in the tiny area that Heero no longer tried to control quite so thoroughly.

"We have sex together, we live in the same house - same room now." That was different. And somehow significant. "I just don't know why it makes a difference?"

He hadn't wanted to ask the question. That very reluctance had prompted him to do so anyway. He wanted to avoid it because he thought Wufei might misinterpret it as doubt about their new arrangement - was it new? It didn't feel all that different. Not asking the question would have been safer. But Wufei had said they were allowed to make mistakes now, say stuff like this, hurt each other accidentally and get over it. A part of Heero still didn't quite believe that. Perversely, it wanted to test the truth of it.

Wufei said nothing. Heero couldn't see his expression, with his partner's face turned away. He tried to read the tension in the arm across his chest, and wondered what the silence meant.

"Why this?" He meant to poke the golden skin contrasting with his own, paler, scar-ridden one, and found himself caressing the arm with his thumb instead, a tiny, tentative gesture. "What does physical contact at the end of sex bring? I'm not saying I don't like it. But it doesn't change anything." Did it? Had anything changed at all, in fact? They'd agreed to give each other some leeway. But wasn't that something that friends did anyway? They'd decided to try to be a bit more open about their feelings, but Heero, assessing himself and Wufei with his usual brutal honestly, was ready to bet that would happen just about as often as Une insisting they take a holiday to go out and have fun.

"We're still the same people. We still fight. We will until one of us dies." He didn't know what would happen to the survivor. That would depend on who it was. He would rather it not be him. He wasn't sure he was up to the choices that would imply. Wufei was probably better equipped for that.

"I'd still die for the mission. If there was no other choice. Though I'm not suicidal any more." The skin beneath his thumb felt smooth, warm, alive. "And if I have to, I will leave you to die, or trust you to do something dangerous that will ensure we succeed even if one or both of us won't make it. You know that." Fortunately there was no question of that in Heero's mind. It wasn't a hindrance to their arrangement. It was an integral part of it.

"It just feels like something should be different. More different. And something does feel different. I just can't figure out what. Introspection has never been something I bother with. Without Zero," he added with a small flinch. Wufei's arm tightened around his chest, comforting. Why was it comforting? No idea. Heero had never been taught to think of that as comfort. Had never had someone do this to him before. Why was it making him feel better? Just from pressure across his rib cage? The warmth of a body nearby?

"I don't know," Heero concluded. "What do you think?" This was Wufei's thing. He was the one who actually thought about this stuff.

No answer.

"Wufei?" Heero twisted to get a better look at his partner. The arm around his ribcage tightened, and Wufei rolled a bit after a few seconds, turning his face on the pillow again so that Heero could see the closed eyes and relaxed features.

"Just how long have you been asleep?" Heero whispered rhetorically. "And how do you manage to drop off while I'm actually touching you? And talking..."

The arm slipped from his chest and curled up, hand fisting near Wufei's chin. "...m'awake...j's restin...m'eyes..."

"Right." Heero very gently lifted Wufei's arm and placed it over his chest again. The eyelids fluttered but didn't actually open, and Wufei snored a couple of times before sniffing once and burying his face further into the pillow, hair falling gently forward, exposing his cheekbone.

"...j's...restin..." The fists slowly uncurled and relaxed, opening fully.

"I know," Heero whispered. He closed his eyes and started composing his report to Sam while listening to his partner's gentle breathing next to his ear.


	43. Breaking Cover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A last bonus chapter, six months down the road from the epilogue, as a huge THANK YOU to everyone who read, enjoyed, left a comment or simply remembered this fic so long after it's first inception.

It had taken most of a year, but the relentless manhunt had finally flushed its target out into the open. The wanted man had covered his tracks well, but nobody could vanish completely. Not if the one on his trail was truly persistent. Though in the end, as was often the case for fugitives on the run, it had not been a mistake by the target that had led to his downfall, but betrayal by his closest friend and ally.

“And by your boss,” Wufei pointed out for the third time. “Une is the one who’s really behind this, you know. I just agreed that it’s a good idea to get it over with.”

Despite his excellent argument, Wufei still got hit with a glare that could peel paint: _Traitor._

Wufei rolled his eyes. “Grow up, Yuy. Relena only wants to see you for a bit. She’s been bugging Une non-stop for almost a year.”

“Useless risk,” Heero grunted, while the aggressive slant of his shoulders said, “Then why couldn’t she hold out another?!”

“What can you do,” Wufei said philosophically, answering the silent objection rather than the vocalized one. “Une did stand her ground for as long as she could, hoping the fool woman would get the hint, but once budget time rolled around, _Minister_ Darlian suddenly had leverage, and you’re nothing but a bargaining chip.”

Heero’s answer, vocal and otherwise, was cut short by the door at the end of the hallway opening.

“Be polite, Yuy,” Wufei hissed, taking a step back. “Remember we have our own meeting in ten minutes, you can stand it for that long.”

“Hn.”

“Heero!”

I hope, Wufei added mentally, noting with interest and a faint sympathy the unlikely clench in Heero’s frame. This from the man who’d been perfectly relaxed three days ago when facing down a maniac armed with a submachine gun. 

“Relena.” The armed maniac had also gotten a nicer welcome. “Was this really necessary?”

That got him a double-barreled glare of warning from both Wufei and Une looking right over Relena’s shoulder.

Relena’s smiled widened. “It wouldn’t be if you returned my messages or came to see me in Sanq from time to time.”

“The risk-“

“I know, I know, which is why I’m meeting you here.” Relena dimpled and gestured around the stolid walls of Preventer HQ. That’s when she caught sight of Wufei. “Agent Chang, I’m so happy to see you again too.”

“Minister.”

“Call me Relena, please!” Her sweet and highly mediatic smile covered him almost as warmly as it had Heero, to his surprise. “I understand you only have a few minutes?”

Heero’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. There you go, Wufei silently told him, see? Not so bad.

“Correct.”

“Talking of risks and not taking any, I’m staying at the extremely secured Regency. It’s under full Preventer control, and they’ve booked the whole upper floor and a private dining room for the ministerial staff. We can’t talk in the middle of a hallway, so I’ll see you there this evening at six for dinner.”

Surprise tightened Heero’s jaw for an extremely rare second. A precious second. If he’d managed to snarl out an immediate ‘No’, it would have stopped Relena from putting the nail in the coffin by turning that lovely smile back to Wufei and adding, “And you are invited as well, Agent Chang. Please do come.”

Wufei stared at her - at her and Une hovering over Relena’s shoulder like a premonition of doom. Well played...Heero would have refused point blank given the chance, but Wufei’s ingrained proprietary could not. He also had a better grasp of the politics involved. Faced with the civilian representative of the public he served, there was only so much rudeness a Preventer should allow himself. Strategic applications of untruths, however, were another matter.

“The problem, minister, is that our schedules are very tight-” He knew it was one more step into the trap from the way Relena’s smile widened and Une frowned. 

“I have already checked,” their commander informed them with military precision. “You are both free.” She was scowling now. A few curious bystanders who’d poked their heads over their cubicle walls in the room beyond suddenly retreated like gophers spotting a winged shadow. 

“Then I guess we’ll be delighted,” Wufei said mildly. 

We will? said the quiet core of hostility at his side.

We’ll have to be, answered the faint shrug rippling Wufei’s shoulders as he let Relena pass through the hallway. Une followed her - half turned as she went by and mouthed, “Behave!” 

“Easy for her to say,” Heero growled beneath his breath.

“She’s been dealing with politicians she is not allowed to arrest or even intimidate for almost a month now,” Wufei whispered, watching them leave. “This is the first year in which the Preventers have been fiscally evaluated on par with another government agency, now that the state of emergency has been lifted over so many countries. Compared to our commander’s political obstacle course of the past few weeks, she won’t consider having a short dinner at the Regency to be any big deal. I tend to agree with her.”

Glare.

“Come on, it won’t be so bad.” Not if Relena had invited them both spontaneously. This couldn’t be some roundabout way of getting Heero alone for some fool notion of - not if she invited the Preventer partner along. Right. “She just wants to catch up, touch base, make sure you’re okay. The more relaxed and polite you are, the better she will rest assured, and then you won’t have to see her again until next budget season.”

“...You’ll do the talking.”

“If need be. You just grunt and put in the occasional inane question. I hear the food at the Regency is some of the best in Brussels - that new-fangled fusion kind, so it will be healthy and digestible at least. And we’ll be leaving at seven to go home and get some rest, we have to get up early for that surveillance duty tomorrow.”

“What surveillance duty? Sam wants us training Team Echo at nine-...hn.”

“You got it. Just let me do the talking and it will be painless.”

The coil of tension at his side relaxed a fraction. Then Heero shook himself and glanced at his watch. “It’s fourteen hundred hours. Let’s go see Grecko. We have an excuse to get out of his meeting early too.”

“Oh?”

“We’re going to the Regency. I am personally vetting security there before tonight.”

“Fair enough.” 

 

The Regency’s private dining room, right off the penthouse suite, was large enough to host dinner for a small convention. It was a pleasant albeit bland room, well lit with chandeliers and a set of French windows leading out onto a balcony off to one side. Heero gave them a long measuring look, but as the lace curtains were drawn, it wasn’t as if a sniper would get a pot shot through them. 

“Relax,” Wufei sighed, then glanced at his watch. Five minutes late. Women...But that meant they only had to stay fifty five minutes now. Wufei took a sip of his glass of fizzy water - from an untampered bottle opened in front of him by a puzzled waitress who was too professional and upscale to inquire or object. Heero hadn’t gotten anything at all. Wufei wondered if he’d even put a bite in his mouth once dinner was served.

At least it would be fast and relatively painless. It wasn’t as if Relena had any underhand motives, not if she’d invited Wufei as well-

The double doors on the far side of the room opened.

“Heero, sorry we’re late!”

She’s a woman, Wufei reminded himself with acid clarity, she’s got a long-standing crush on the man and she’s a politician; three very good reasons for her to be far more adept at underhanded than I could ever be. 

Heero had stiffened in surprise and in reaction to Wufei’s own tension.

“Relena,” Wufei said, working hard to keep his voice neutral. “And Miss Catalonia. What an unexpected surprise.”

“Charmed,” said Dorothy from across the room.

We’ve been completely outmaneuvered, Wufei thought with intense self-recrimination, raking over their respective outfits. Relena was dressed with a hint of conservative grace, but the skirt and small jacket ensemble was the outfit of a more mature woman rather than the professional suits she usually favored; pale cream, cut with decorum that could still reveal enough to get the point across. While Dorothy Catalonia, in what appeared to be a black leather skirt, strapless top and matching clutch purse, was simply dressed to kill - figuratively, not literally, though considering who was involved it was worth making that distinction. 

The girls were waylaid before they took more than three steps into the room by the waitress who proffered her tray.

Relena blinked. “Oh, I didn’t order-” 

“I did,” Dorothy said, grabbing a glass that had ‘liquor, neat’ written all over it, Wufei could judge even from the fifteen feet that still separated them. The Regency, like most high-class joints long used to Romefeller rule, had heard about the legal drinking age and decided it was too bourgeois to concern them. “And a non alcoholic mai-tai for you, dear. Though I’m sure they can make that a non-virgin if you want it.”

“This will be fine,” Relena said with a smile of thanks to the waitress (Wufei wondered if Relena had missed some innuendo there or if he was looking way too hard now).

“Catalonia’s been vetted,” Heero said at Wufei’s side, speaking almost sub-vocally. He’d obviously picked up on Wufei’s tension though not, of course, the cause. Wufei sighed internally.

“Remember, we leave at seven,” he mouthed, half turning to keep his face away from the advancing eastern front. “For the record, I am sorry.”

Heero’s eyebrows twitched in surprise, but he didn’t have time to say anything; the enemy had crossed the border and was surrounding them.

“Heero, it’s so nice to see you,” Relena said, eyes only on him and thus completely missing the cold glare from Wufei.

Dorothy oiled up, slipped an arm through his and turned him towards the window.

“Chang Wufei, it’s been ages. Come on, if you’ve never been here, you have got to see the view.”

My god they’re not even trying to be subtle! Wufei thought with affront.

Dorothy’s arm tugged. “Come on,” she purred very low, “I bet you guys can’t stay long - am I right? So let’s get this moving. There’s a movie I want to catch at eight in the entertainment center downstairs.”

Wufei gave her a Look and didn’t move.

Dorothy’s smirk grew. Relena’s starting barrage of banalities behind them covered her aide’s low murmur: “Are you two joined at the hip? Come on, your friend is old enough to not need a chaperone.”

Damn it. But of course she had a point. Wufei let himself be pulled away from his besieged comrade, despite Foxwood’s oft repeated instruction to ‘never leave a mate behind!’ He’d be apologizing again before the end of the night, he was the one who was supposed to be on the lookout for these situations. He’d talked Heero into this, he thought he was doing the right thing, letting Relena lay some old ghosts to rest. Right. So, ‘play it or fight?’ as the partners would say. ‘Play it’ was the only viable option really, but this was the last time Heero would ever meet the damned woman if Wufei had any say in the matter. Next time Une tried to rally the troops with a ‘Once more unto the breach!’, he’d be on Heero’s side. Politeness and politics be damned.

Dorothy opened the balcony window and stepped outside. Wufei cast a last glance over his shoulder. Heero had instinctively taken Relena by the elbow and moved her around so she was no longer in line of sight. Wufei caught a glimpse of her face as she turned, the radiant pleased expression at the unexpected contact that might have looked like a chivalrous move to one side so they could talk undisturbed. Ten minutes ago, that look would have gotten Wufei’s pity. Not anymore. No. Now he raked Catalonia up and down in the evening light, trying to decided if she was Relena’s wingman - which would be coldly calculating and irritating - or Wufei’s blind date, which would be ignominious and downright insulting. Just how mad was Wufei going to have to be?

“There we go.” Dorothy leaned against the balcony’s railing, her little purse under her arm. “Isn’t that an amazing view?”

Wufei didn’t spare a glance. “I’ve seen it.”

“How gallant.”

“What?”

“Aren’t you implying that the view is old hat whereas looking at me is a whole new and more interesting experience?” Dorothy’s grin said clearly that she knew the difference between an admiring look and a caustic glare and was enjoying tweaking his nose with it. “Oh relax, Chang, have a drink - a real one, because I’m ready to bet that’s not gin in your mug. You should try the Talisker they have here, aged eighteen years. My father would never drink anything else.” She gestured towards her own glass she’d deposited on a small metallic table near the banister. Two metal garden chairs were pulled up suggestively near it, and would fall to rust before Wufei availed himself of their invitation to sit down and admire the view of Brussel’s old town center at Dorothy’s side.

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t drink on duty, heh? I didn’t mean your Preventer duty which ends at five - though I notice you’re both still in uniform. But nanny duty lasts forever. Trust me, I’ve been there. But the kiddies are playing nicely together so we can let our hair down while keeping an eye on the sandbox.”

The tone and smirk forbade Wufei from doing what he wanted to do, which was to glance back into the room. 

“I see your finishing school lessons in manipulation have not gone to waste,” Wufei commented, refusing the play the game. 

Her forked eyebrows twitched at his forthrightness. “Far from it. As Relena’s aide in Sanq, I am working in the political arena all the time. I ply the winds between ESUN and old Romefeller factions, so I like to keep my wits sharpened at every opportunity.” And what are you going to do about it? added her cozy smile.

“I recommend you tone it down a touch.”

Her smile widened at his clipped words. “Why ever should I?”

“Because you are talking to someone in a bad mood who can get your clearance revoked with two phone calls and one set of forms.”

Her eyes narrowed - and there was a faint movement of fingers at her clutch purse that sent Wufei’s instincts twitching. She wouldn’t...

“I see. You’ve not changed since the good old days of blowing things up rather than using finesse. Fine, let’s give up the pretense and watch this play out then. Come and park a hip over here,” she added, jerking a thumb at the banister next to her. “Just don’t interfere. There are times when the best thing a friend can do is back off and let a buddy crash and burn on their own.” Was she talking about Heero or Relena here? 

She grinned at Wufei who had neither moved nor unbent. “It’s like he really is your charge. Being friends and partners doesn’t give you proprietary interest, you know. Stop hovering and relax, from the way she’s stumbling around in there, this could take awhile.” Dorothy was angled to get a fairly decent view of Relena and could probably read lips too. 

Wufei glanced around. He could only see a slice of the minister from here. Relena had one hand on Heero’s arm and an earnest look to her frame. 

“Really? I give it one minute.”

Heero stared at Relena, comprehension widening his eyes. Then his lips shaped the words, “Sorry. Not interested.” Wufei could just imagine the curt tone that’d delivered them. But Relena’s hand fluttered again, undeterred. She must have come ready for a fight.

Right attitude, wrong war, Ms Peacecraft, Wufei thought, sipping his water. 

Relena would now be asking why not, and she was about to get a fairly impregnable three word answer in return. Dorothy was arguably right, Wufei had to concede; Heero did not need his help or involvement. 

On cue, he saw Heero drop the bombshell.

The virgin mai-tai ended up on the carpet, some of it splashing onto the dress.

Dorothy hadn’t seen what Heero had said, she was angled to better catch Relena’s expression. She stiffened and her hand twitched towards her purse again. 

Wufei leaned forward to get a glimpse. He could only see a slice of profile but it showed him Relena’s eyes were wide, so was her mouth.

Again, Wufei would have felt more sympathetic if this had happened in the Preventer HQ after her one o’clock with Une rather than in the midst of this- this ambush. The manipulative chit deserved both the shock and the awfully silly look spreading over her face right now. 

Hypocritical much? an inner voice with an L2 twang sniggered. You probably didn’t look all that much brighter two weeks ago when he dropped the same bombshell on you, pal.

Though Wufei’s warrior reflexes meant he hadn’t have covered himself in mai-tai. No, his spilled tea had landed mostly in the saucer. 

\-- 

 

“You’re- what?” Wufei croaked. The rattle of porcelain sounded dim through the ringing in his ears.

Heero looked up from his work laid out on the kitchen counter.

“I said, I’m gay.”

It was tempting to call it a joke - lame and weird, but Heero was still sitting through Humor 101 and often skipped classes. Wufei himself had been delivering a self-deprecating prod in his own direction when he’d described one of his recent conversations with Winner as ‘the commiseration of two straight men not quite sure how they got hooked up with one bisexual and two uncategorized.’ 

It’d been the latter label that had led to Heero dropping the bombshell. Not that he seemed to think it was one.

“This is a surprise to you?” he asked dryly.

“Uh...I just...we never actually talked about it. Not about your-...”

Heero glanced down at the circuits he was wiring. He’d picked up a new hobby in the last few months; he was inventing new circuit boards and computer hardware systems. It had started when he’d decided to put together an utterly tamper-proof anti-bugging and security system. Then he’d gone on to improving and toying with other things. Wufei couldn’t see the attraction, but he suspected Heero felt the same way about Wufei’s interest in the rise of neo-Legalism in the 22nd century Korean conglomerate. Wufei stared at the green plastic mottled with red and yellow circuits, and was intensely glad, out of the blue, that he could be absolutely guaranteed that no snoop was watching him and the expression he must have on his face right now. He took a sip of tea on the heel of that thought, using the cup to mask his unsettled countenance.

The circuit wasn’t what was holding Heero’s interest. He seemed to be looking inward. “It never occurred to me to think about it until this past year.”

There was a whole conversation there, a subset of the one that had been ongoing these past six months and that touched on many topics. Difficult and daunting at first, but getting easier as time went on, a dozen delicate negotiations establishing new rules to their arrangement, safer ways of letting off steam, other ways to still hone their edge against each other; a new construct made of safe zones and no go zones and small places to hide in together. It wound around their job and their lives and their routines, it ornamented their house in much the same way the large bed dominated their bedroom, and it had changed them by increment. It’d never occurred to Heero that he was _anything_ until somewhat recently because before that, he’d never even thought to question an aspect of himself he would otherwise consider less than trivial.

“But you’re sure?” Wufei asked before he could run that question past his better judgment.

“...It _is_ a surprise to you.” Heero looked at him curiously. “We’ve lived together for a year and a half now and screwed each other for longer than that. Why are you surprised that I’m gay?”

“But that doesn’t count,” Wufei objected immediately, obscurely relieved for reasons he couldn’t fathom. “Any more than Winner and I can be said to- these things just happened. Pressures of the war, our totally unique circumstances. That doesn’t define someone’s sexuality.”

“Yes, you’re probably right.” Heero picked up a transistor with a micro-grip. “That doesn’t.”

The tea was getting colder an inch from Wufei’s mouth. “Are you saying you’d be...interested in men even without- I mean, even if-...” 

“Hn.” The transistor ended up aligned with something else Wufei didn’t recognize. 

”...Any of us, the same, um, umbrella applies, the five of us, our genders hardly mattered in that context, they wouldn’t really count either.”

“Correct,” Heero said softly. “They’re friends.” 

That single soft word was loaded. Friends. Emotional lodestones. Constants in a changeable world. Anchors. But not, from a faint nuance in the way he said it, objects of attraction. 

“So it wasn’t one of them you were thinking about?”

“Thinking about?” Heero asked distractedly, eyeing the circuit he was building.

“If you’ve recently realized you’re, uh, attracted to your own gender, that does rather imply you have been. Attracted to someone of your own gender. Recently. Outside of our little group.”

Heero glanced up. “I did-” 

There was what could be described as a short, sharp silence.

But fortunately it did not last. Things had changed a lot in the past few months. A great deal indeed. So instead of missing the import of the question altogether, or switching off his feelings and walking away, Heero just hunkered down and asked, “How much trouble am I in right now?”

Wufei found himself rather disarmed in spite of himself. 

“I’m not going to hold you accountable for- for noticing someone- just the physical side-...Who exactly...?”

“I’m thinking I should keep that to myself,” Heero said slowly. He was not only the best soldier the human race had ever produced, but an exceedingly fast learner as well.

“I just said I wasn’t going to hold you accountable for-...you may be right.”

Wufei went to dump his cold tea in the sink and wash his cup. A true scholar should think himself privileged to learn something new. That Heero had managed such a journey of inner discovery was...breathtaking. So many changes in the past year, and in the past few months. Truly- 

Wufei had also changed. He had perforce learned to be more honest with himself even with emotionally charged subjects. Yes, he was genuinely pleased on many levels to see his partner change, develop enough self-awareness to come to this realization and feel comfortable enough to share it. At the same time Wufei was making an inner list of every male acquaintance between the ages of sixteen and sixty and tallying them in a way that did him very little credit indeed.

Jealousy, Chang? Really? This he needed like a round of OZ interrogations. But he didn’t tamp it down, he didn’t try to deny it. Might as well fight this devil head on. 

“It should be me.”

“Hm? What?” Wufei glanced over his shoulder as he put the cup and saucer in the drainer. Heero had turned from his circuits, elbows back against the table, looking at him as if he were peering down a rifle scope.

“If there was one of use who should feel uneasy here, it should be me.”

“You?! You think _I_ would- would-” If this was this ridiculous notion that Wufei was unnaturally close to Quatre again- It’d taken almost a month for Heero to stop scowling at _their friend_ each time the latter called Wufei-

“You pointed it out just now: _you_ are straight.’

Oh. That’s what he meant.

“...So?” Wufei asked.

Heero frowned. That had apparently not been the response he’d expected.

Wufei leaned against the sink, unconsciously mirroring Heero’s pose. “As I started to say earlier: just noticing someone is not an issue as long as it doesn’t distract us, and I hardly think we are at risk of that. We’ve got enough focus between us to build a good dozen lasers. Beyond that, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Right?”

Wufei hurled that at his little inner demons which slouched off in defeat. For now. He was still going to be hyper aware of any male Heero looked at twice for the next, oh, decade or two, but he was surely not alone in that respect. It was a good bet that most of the human race, from the lowest dog to the highest philosopher, had struggled with this issue at one time or another. 

“But...”

Wufei had been turning to get the dishtowel. He’d not expected a but. Especially not by itself, stranded in a rare moment of something like hesitation. 

Heero’s head had dipped and his eyes were hidden behind the fall of his hair. His body language was...odd. Loosely poised like a teenage terrorist had once been when he’d calmly reached for a red button with no thought of self at all. Wufei frowned.

“What? This isn’t suddenly a concern, is it?”

Silence. Stillness.

Wufei sniffed. “Your powers of observation may not be as fine-honed as mine, but I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed that, even if I might find women attractive, I don’t actually like them all that much.”

“You get along fine with our fellow agents.”

“Of course. They’ve proven themselves. But that’s got nothing to do with attraction.” Wufei had never had the luxury, the opportunity or the lack of self-discipline to truly explore his own beleaguered sexuality- and maybe that was why Heero’s straightforward admission earlier had perturbed him a bit. It had made him feel oddly immature and repressed. But he was quite sure he was fundamentally attracted to women, and equally sure that he was not attracted to any of the excellent agents, female or otherwise, who’s life he protected with his own just as they protected his. They just didn’t enter into the same framework in his mind. Mutually exclusive. 

But Heero was still a pool of odd silence, expression hidden.

“Tch, what, you think I might meet some female paragon one day? Somebody who would attract me both on a physical and emotional level?”

“It could happen,” was the completely neutral reply.

Apparently Wufei was not going to be allowed to lighten the mood or saunter away from this ridiculous question. He scratched the base of his ponytail, turning that over in his mind - as well as a faint sense of wonder they were even having this conversation in the first place. Half a year ago they would have sooner reached the Mars colony in a rowboat than get to this point in a Sunday morning discussion over tea and protein bars. 

“Hmm, yes. It’s a far-fetched notion, but as we have proven repeatedly during the war, nothing is impossible. A woman who could meet and match my passion for justice. Who’d know what it was to battle and burn for it, who’d not hamper me with weakness but exalt my strength. Someone highly intelligent, dedicated, but who could still laugh and enjoy the finer things in life - and though I am not superficial, I wouldn’t mind her pretty, petite and Asian as well, to really make her my ideal woman.”

Heero hadn’t moved. “Yes. If you met someone like that, I would not-“

“I already have,” Wufei snorted. “Six months ago. She tried to kill me, remember?”

That finally got Heero to look him in the eye, a startled flash of blue quickly melting into anger. “That’s not- how can you say that?! That Wu woman was a menace!”

“Granted, though on the face of it, she would have been perfect. But no matter, I know what you mean: a true companion - more than just attraction, you’re talking about a give-and-take of emotional support, I presume. You think I could find someone who’d not only put up with me and my issues, but even keep up with me, help me become a better man, a better warrior. Is that it?”

“Yes. Someone who _hasn’t_ tried to kill you,” Heero ground out.

“What, not even a little bit? As collateral damage, maybe?”

“Coll- Isn’t _not_ trying to kill you the minimum you’d expect?!”

“No, sounds unreasonably picky to me,” Wufei shrugged, heading towards the stairs. “If I went with that criteria for this soulmate you seem keen on inventing for me, I wouldn’t be currently living with him right now.”

“What-...”

Wufei glanced back to say something else - what it was, he would never be able to quite remember. He’d prefer to remember that sliver of a look he caught on Heero’s face. It was...it was just a flash before his features settled to their customary neutral again. Wufei still had to catch him off guard to see what the deep inner currents hid - maybe Heero had to catch himself off guard too, come to think of it. But that glimpse...

Heero’s eyes flicked away towards the tea pot still on their small stove. ”...I’m a man though.” 

“Hmm, I quite noticed that, thank you. But if life were perfect, there would be no need for Preventer agents and Gundam Pilots. I need to get dressed, I’m driving over to Sam’s in a few minutes, I have some more papers to pick up for the Adams case. Want to come along? We could grab an early lunch at that Vietnamese place. I’ll fill in the forms once we get back home and hand them in tomorrow.” A lessening of fires across the earth sphere in conjunction with more oversight meant that the Preventers had also changed by increment in the past half year. For one, Wufei had discovered there were still such a thing as weekends out there, and that the two agents were expected to take them. This had led to a conspiracy of working at home among the Specials cadre, but in truth there were less and less reasons to kill themselves with overtime these days - or even to get shot at all that often; there was still regular firefights, but a good number of their office hours were now dedicated to normal casework, surveillance and training other teams. Lessening the workweek to a mere sixty hours had given rise to Heero’s new hobby and other changes. The restlessness Wufei had expected had still not arisen as of yet. The only spillover so far had been increased usage of the weapons range, the toolshop, the dojo floor and punching bag, and the bed. 

Wufei leaned back from the stairwell for an answer. Heero was still staring into space.

Wufei did the low whistle they used on recon. Heero blinked and looked up. He stared at Wufei for much longer than culinary considerations required, then he gave that quirk of the lips whose geometry had also evolved since the war and in this past half year - give it another decade and it would be real smile, Wufei thought with an inner snort that failed to be entirely condemning. 

Heero turned to the kitchen table and unplugged the soldering torch. “I’ll be ready by the time you come back down.”

“Good.”

\--

 

Back in the present, Wufei remembered that angular nearly-smile. He remembered that glimpse of a look. He remembered that he damn well _did_ have a proprietary interest. 

“Miss Catalonia, you are currently employed by ESUN, correct?”

Dorothy blinked at the crisp inquiry. “Er, yes-“

“This floor of the Regency is reserved for ESUN functions and under their purview for security measures while the minister is in residence. As per directive eighteen B on Search and Perquisitions, I am allowed to inspect the contents of any bag or container about your person without a warrant.”

“Huh? Hey!” but it was too late, Wufei had extracted the clutch purse from her hands. He dodged her clawed swipe, opened it and dumped its contents onto the little metal table.

“Why you!”

Nothing immediately jumped out. Had he been wrong? Ah, no. He reached for the little cylinder.

“What’s this?”

“Perfume,” Dorothy told him, teeth bared as if to bite.

She blanched and flinched back as he swung it up towards her face. “Really? From the way the canister is sealed to the valve, I’d say this perfume is under extremely high pressure. Do you mist it on your skin or spray it over a perimeter?”

Wufei lowered it and expertly cracked the canister out. 

“It’s mace and it’s not illegal,” Dorothy said aristocratically, chin up.

“Ah but I’m afraid it is, since this doesn’t have any label indicating strength or provenance. That is required in the European union, I’m afraid.”

“Oh!”

“Tell you what, I’ll confiscate it and we’ll let it slide,” Wufei said, slipping it into his uniform’s front breast pocket. He dropped the ‘perfume’ propellant valve back onto the table and then stalked back into the room.

Relena had only just gotten over the initial spluttering stages. “But...I mean...are you sure? That just seems...so sudden- I-...I just want you to be happy, Heero, I- er-...” Relena gave Wufei a wall-eyed look as he drew up level with Heero.

Wufei silently handed her the napkin the waitress had given him with his glass and bottle. Relena looked at it as if she had never seen one before in her life. 

“You spilled your drink.” Wufei gestured towards the pink stripe down one side of the cream-colored skirt.

“Oh. Oh, right. Th-thank you. Um...sorry, Agent- Wufei, could you...could Heero and I have a moment?”

“What for?”

Red dots had appeared on her face. “We- um, we were having a private conversation which- which doesn’t involve you.” 

Wrong thing to say. “It _does_.”

“What? No, we were just- I’m sorry, could you- could-...Dorothy?”

“Don’t look at me,” Dorothy said. She’d trailed in after him, stuffing her belongings back into her purse. “I think they’re both thugs and a waste of our time.” Wufei smiled.

Relena boggled at her, then gave Heero a longing look. “Please, Heero? Can we...we should discuss this.”

“Really? What is there more to say?” Wufei ground out.

Relena finally straightened and flashed a bit of what Wufei thought of as a Catalonia Look. 

“I am sorry, but I decline to answer you when you speak to me in that tone. What can this possibly have to do with you?”

“Ah. That again. Fine. Heero?”

Heero had picked up the glass and was looking around, either for a place to put it or for more napkins to dab up the stain on the carpet. He looked around in surprise at being dragged back into the conversation. “Yes?”

“I am going to have to spell it out for her, do you mind?”

Heero gave him the look of a man who’d been mostly at sea with all this since two o’clock this afternoon, but he nodded. Not a nod of agreement per se, more a ‘You obviously know what’s going on here, so take point and I'll provide fire support.”

The sound of purse-rummaging behind them stopped abruptly. “Spell out what?” Dorothy asked sharply.

“Ms Peacecraft, Heero and I have been living together for well over a year now, we’re partners - _domestic_ partners, so if he says he’s not interested, please pick up the hint; we’d both appreciate it.” 

Catalonia said something under her breath that was more a credit to her time spent with the armed forces on the Libra than her finishing school. Relena gave a hiccup.

“Wait wait wait,” said the snake at their backs with a growing smirk Wufei could feel between his shoulder blades, “so you work as a unit and you also fuck? Is that legal?

Wufei half turned towards her. “We are not military or in a chain of command, so fraternization rules do not apply. Our commander is aware of the situation and has not raised any concerns.” 

“Really? I wonder if she’s mentioned that to Internal Affairs, though. Maybe I-“ Dorothy cut herself off as Wufei idly tapped a finger against his breast pocket. 

“Fine,” Dorothy said poisonously. “Relena, let’s go to the kitchen and get some seltzer water before that sets in.” She reached between them, grabbed her friend’s unresisting arm and spirited her away. Relena was still staring straight ahead as she vanished through the door. 

Wufei let his hackles settle and glanced at Heero. ”...My apologies. That got out of hand.”

Heero was silent, staring at the door for five long seconds, the empty mai-tai glass still in his hand. “I don’t think I really understood any of this.”

Wufei winced. “Yes, I’m sorry, I should have asked you-“

“But I think I liked it,” Heero concluded slowly. 

There was that small nearly-there smile on his mouth again as he leaned forward a tad towards Wufei, making the latter blink in surprise.

“I’m not good at nuance,” Heero said softly. “It all _sounded_ polite, but their reaction indicates-”

“That was polite enough in the circumstances. She tried to set me up with the Catalonia woman. She’s lucky I didn’t put her in an arm lock and march her out of here.”

Heero straightened up abruptly. “She _what?_ ”

“Blame me for not seeing this coming. Women, I swear...”

Heero dropped the glass into a nearby potted plant and marched towards the door. “We’re leaving.”

“No, that would be a bit too rude.” And he was damned if he was the one quitting the field and running away. 

“Rude? Are we staying until seven?!”

“No, I give it ten minutes.”

“What?”

“At that point that warmongering friend of hers - or possibly someone on the Regency’s staff - will pop back in here saying the minister can’t get the stain out and has a headache or something, and could she please have a rain check. All sides will agree to give it to her and both sides will plan to have it on this side of never.

“Really?” Heero was looking at him as if he was a magician, which made Wufei grimace. 

“That’s what I would think would happen, but with those crazy women, who can tell?” 

“Do we have to wait?” Heero was still halfway to the door, giving it a look usually reserved for suspects. He hadn’t been all that agitated by Relena’s attempt at whatever it was she thought she was doing, but the blind date side of things seemed to have left him seething beneath the steely control and the neutral mask. Wufei’s mood had vastly improved since aiming the mace at Dorothy’s smirk, now it got even better for reasons he decided he did not have to investigate too closely. 

“Une did ask us to behave. Ten minutes.” 

There was a knock at the door nine minutes and ten seconds later.

Wufei had to remind himself once more that he did not fundamentally understand women. At least not that kind of woman. There weren’t many like her, though.

Relena stood there in jeans and a simple blouse. There were two red spots on her cheeks still and her eyes looked a tad puffy, but her smile was back, the real one that had been pretty much absent until now.

“Let’s start this again,” she said without preamble. “I apologize. I made assumptions. But I am happy to hear you’ve found- that you have both found a safe place to berth. That’s how you pilots say it, right? Can we...may we have that dinner anyway please? As friends?”

Wufei looked from her to Catalonia who had also unexpectedly shown up at Relena’s shoulder.

“I’m just here for moral support,” Dorothy said.

“Oh? What are you packing this time?”

“I stole a steak knife from the kitchen.”

“What?” said Heero and Relena at much the same time but in somewhat different tones.

“Nothing. Inside joke,” Dorothy said with a flesh-eating smile and her eyes fixed on Wufei. “I think I’m up for this dinner after all, Relena, it’ll be _fun_. Shall we?”

It did turn out to be entertaining. Wufei and Dorothy spent the hors d’oeuvre and entrée trading small barbs and sparring over various political and philosophical issues while Dorothy quartered her meat as if it’d opposed her dubious dreams of conquest in the name of peace. Heero and Relena sat opposite each other, listening to their fellow diners with something like morbid fascination at times, at others exchanging a few words. Wufei didn’t listen; this time it really was none of his business. He hoped they’d hammer something out, if it was possible between people on both sides of such a wide gulf. At least a tentative peace. It was their jobs, after all.

Eventually Relena remembered that and keelhauled the conversation away from whatever war was brewing between the two people she’d presumably hoped to set up. The conversation ambled a bit with the cheese. Coffee was served on a side table. Wufei took advantage of this rare access to the inner workings of government to have a talk with Relena about some of the political implications of lifting the state of emergency. Not surprisingly, when she wasn’t trying to seduce his partner he found her to be intelligent, sensitive yet sensible, and an excellent debater of finer political points. Wufei was almost at risk of enjoying himself. Heero wasn’t giving him the ‘Extract!’ signal, so apparently his intense discussion with Dorothy about the logistical implications of long term warfare using mobile dolls versus Gundams was interesting. Or possibly entrapment. 

It was past eight when they made it back to their car. 

“Fine,” said Heero. “It wasn’t so bad.”

The comment might have sounded abrupt to an onlooker, but it’d been the conclusion of a two minute discussion held in silence through the medium of a few looks and a shrug. 

Wufei half smiled as he slipped behind the wheel of the car. “You behaved. Une will be so proud of you.”

There was a muttered comment covered by the click of a safety belt.

“But we can’t see her that often,” Heero added sharply as Wufei pulled out of the underground parking. “Not every time she comes here. The risk-”

“I’ll back you up on that. So will Une. I think even Relena will be reasonable.” She’d admitted in half words while she and Wufei were watching the end of the Doll vs. Gundam debate, that she still had nightmares about Berlin. There’d been lines around her mouth that did not belong to a seventeen year old when she’d said that. But her eyes had gained a sheen of peace as they rested on Heero, perhaps on the back of resignation. Wufei hoped that those nightmares at least would leave her now. As one of the founding figures of Total Pacifism, she had quite enough on her plate.

“But you will have to answer her emails,” he added.

There was a non-verbal growl of reluctance in the suddenly crossed arms over a firm chest at his side.

“Relax. She’ll be cc-ing me and I can handle some of the required communication.” There were Rules to these things after all, and he was sure Relena would have a much better grasp of them than he ever could. A woman did not privately email her one-time crush without cc-ing the guy’s-...partner. Right.

Damn.

“You made me agree to it,” Heero groused, misunderstanding Wufei’s small sigh.

“That’s not it. I was thinking about something else. We’re going to have to...to somehow let people know. About us. You realize that, right?”

“Why?” Heero asked with barely any curiosity and zero defensiveness. Wufei was preemptively feeling enough for the both of them.

“To avoid getting set up on double dates with barely-pardoned war criminals, for starters. And because La Catalonia will find ways of letting everybody in ESUN know sooner or later. I messaged Une in the elevator already. It won’t harm our careers, the commander will make sure of that, but now it’s bound to trickle out.”

“So?”

“So Sally, the old Fox, Sanji, Weiss, Darshad and Armand and them all, they deserve to hear it from us, not the grapevine. I don’t think they’ll be all that surprised,” Wufei muttered.

Heero’s shrug was one that could not even begin to give a damn. Wufei envied him briefly. Just thinking of ways of telling their friends without actually _saying_...well, anything embarrassing or trite, it was going to be a herculean task. He cringed a bit at the thought of the questions he’d have to field, and a ton of mildly irritating details. 

But the fear was gone, that unbearable tension that had gripped him over half a year ago when he’d been terrified of outside gazes tipping a delicate balance he could not even admit to. Whatever happened, whatever was said or assumed or joked about, he would be ultimately okay with it. He knew that because really, in hindsight, there had to have been other ways of shaking Relena and Dorothy off other than telling them straight out that he and Heero had hooked up. The tentative relationship that had felt stiff and artificial a few months ago had become easier and more familiar by tiny degrees until he’d just shot that out without thinking about anything other than a look, the start of the smile and his proprietary interested (damned woman). 

He found himself looking over at Heero. Just because. His partner had relaxed, he had one arm propped against the car window and his chin in his palm, looking out over Brussels. An autumn moon was rising through clouds over the old part of town near the canal. 

“It’s peaceful out there tonight,” Heero said apropos of nothing. 

Wufei grunted absently. There was a lack of surface-to-air missiles, certainly, but that was about as far as Wufei was willing to concede the point since he was the one driving. The highway through Brussels from downtown to their industrial sector was rife with late-working businessmen in a hurry to head home to their suburbs, all driving with European aplomb - meaning way too fast and aggressively. At least one of them had definitely been drunk (Wufei had automatically noted down the license plate number). There were times he still wished he was piloting a Gundam. 

Peaceful...It hadn’t been said in a happy-go-lucky way - Wufei would have had to go back to the Regency to check on their water supply if that were the case. It wasn’t said wistfully. The tone it invoked was watchfulness...They were the guardians at the gate, all five of them. They had paid too high a price for peace, and they had made others pay an even higher one. They were not allowed to see it fail. It was their life, their future, their every waking thought. Their burden and their fulfillment. How on earth Heero thought Wufei would ever be able to fit a woman - anybody other than a fellow pilot - into that picture was a wonder. Heero tended to overestimate Wufei’s adaptability. And what would Heero do then, huh? What had the bonehead been about to say two weeks ago when he’d started to speculate about Wufei running into some female wonder. What had he been about to suggest? That he’d be okay to step aside? Become Wufei’s work-wife? Self-destruct? Idiot. 

At the end of the day, they were all five too dedicated and damaged to inflict themselves on normal people. But that was okay. With true guerrilla-tactics approach, they’d grabbed the very little life had left them with and ripped out of it what they needed to survive, and maybe even some of the peace, companionship and contentment that others took for granted.

“Our RV with Sam and Echo is tomorrow at nine, right?” Wufei asked on the trail end of some thought or other.

“Yes.”

“So really, it’s still quite some time before we have to go to sleep.”

“Hn.” Then Heero’s lips quirked though his gaze stayed fixed on the skyline.

Wufei stowed away nebulous thoughts and concentrated on getting them home alive in the shortest time possible without breaking the speed limit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks :) A fairly light ending, but after all the drama, isn't it nice to see that life can eventually get a little bit better.
> 
> Something I noticed. A lot of fics go like this:  
> While working together, one or both pilots comes out of the closet -> they fall in love -> have adventures -> move in together -> finally have sex  
> This fic gets it almost entirely the wrong way around, but I guess that's what to expect with these two blockheads.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Arranged (illustration)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12133056) by [szzzt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/szzzt/pseuds/szzzt)
  * [The Arrangement [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5387072) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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